Information technology has been a blessing for every field of life including education and that’s why, E-learning or electronic learning is considered to be an approximately $50 billion industry now. Now, that seems to be a lot of money, with the future of millions of students attached to it. But the thing is, online learning has created a name in front of the world, due to its credibility, cost-effectiveness and exceptional learning opportunities. Initially, a lot of criticism was thrown over the idea of e-learning that it won’t be able to create the perfect ambiance for the students and they won’t be able to learn but the results were completely different.

People who have left their studies due to their jobs or other personal commitment, found a way to follow their dreams with e-courses. Many students who liked to study abroad but couldn’t, due to homesickness or financial issues, get an opportunity to study at international schools or colleges within the comforts of their homes. There are many courses, which are only offered in particular countries and others were unable to study them because they couldn’t afford to go to those countries but now all these online degrees and online certifications have made it very easy.

All these factors have raised the interest of students to join these e-courses. The courses range from accounting, business management, IT to Art and engineering fields. The choices are so wide that nobody could feel left out. Different surveys have also been conducted about e-learning and the statistics shows that every year, there’s a huge increase in students as well as introduction of different e-courses as well. They are preferred because you can study as per your availability, during the days or nights or while travelling as well. You just need to connect to the online world and you can study anytime.

Read the rest of this entry »

The debate on the level of education and skills required for the teaching profession has been raging on for a long time. The fact is that the teaching profession is critical to economic growth as teachers determine the quality of students graduating from our schools ready for training in professional fields. While some believe that an education masters degree does not necessarily make a better teacher, others are of the view that teaching should be made a masters level profession.

The proponents of having an education masters degree argue that it will add to the teachers’ mastery of their subject area as well as add to their teaching skills. Ideally this is the out come of undergoing this degree program. The graduate program gives teachers and other education stakeholders specialized skills in their subjects, advanced practical teaching skills and research methods.

Shift in market
More and more school districts and private institutions are preferentially hiring teachers with advanced teaching qualifications. Remuneration and promotion decisions are now more than ever also greatly influenced by teachers’ educational qualifications. It is therefore clear that as things stand the trend is towards having teachers acquiring education masters degrees. However there have been calls for caution in teacher evaluation with calls for a look at actual output and performance.

The debate in the area of acquiring the masters degree has also been influenced in part by the argument on whether “how to teach” skills are superseded by knowledge in subject content. In essence do we need a teacher with advanced knowledge in a subject area or one with much more teaching skills background. The argument here is whether there is need to have teachers with more practical teaching skills or academic qualifications.

Read the rest of this entry »

An online course is very different from the traditional courses in various ways. To begin with; in several cases, an online course is more student centered. This automatically implies that most of the material is delivered via internet. It is not very easy to decide whether to study online or using the traditional course. You need to be aware of the expectations of an online course. It is important to know the differences between online course and traditional classes for you to be able to understand what pertains to an online course. There are a number of things that one needs to know about online diplomas or e-learning.

First, it is about the use of technology. Every conversation with fellow learners and teachers will be through a technological gadget and hence, it is important to know some of these gadgets and how to operate them. At the same time, one should be able to use them well. For instance email, video chat, forums, instant messaging, bulletin boards and blogs are all ways through which information can be relayed during an e-course. It is also important to know your teachers preferred means of communication. This is so because online degrees mean that there will be no teacher standing in front of the class for the lessons. Therefore, one should be conversant with technology in order to be able to proceed and progress in their studies using e-learning and its technology.

Since, there will be no face to face interaction with fellow students; technology comes in to bridge the gap. For example, during group projects or discussions, a student or students can teleconference through the internet on Skype and other video chat software. Grading is just similar to how it happens in traditional classroom courses. Thus, participation, homework and test grades are important in an online course too. Grading Examinations are done just like in the traditional class. However, students are expected to maintain a high level of integrity for the tests to be credible. Some sort of monitoring of the exam should be done to avoid cheating. Violating the ethical standard of online diplomas should attract punishment.

Read the rest of this entry »