In 1840, Sir Isaac Pitman, the English inventor of shorthand, came up with an ingenious idea for delivering instruction to a potentially limitless audience: correspondence courses by mail.
E-learning is its present-day avatar. It is the delivery of education through modern communication media like the Internet. Unlike good old postal learning, e-learning is fast and highly interactive.
There are now online courses ranging from golf to paediatrics, digital art to astronomy, and engineering to the ever popular IT...
But while large portals like ZedUniv, NIIT's Netvarsity and Aptech's OnlineVarsity promote their courses enthusiastically, students shake their heads in disapproval.
"No-one cares for an eMBA, no matter where you do it from," says Rishab Sood. "They turn out to be expensive after all, because dial up access is costly in India," observes Nimita Rao. "The 'team feeling' is missing," complains Payal Sinha.
Most importantly, students claim these courses carry little weight career-wise. That's probably because not all online courses are certified. Not usually intended to replace your formal education, the purpose of most of them is to:
- Review material you previously learned in school
- Prepare you for job and school placement exams
- Extend your vocational skills
- Extend your understanding of theoretical material related to your work, hobby or special interest.
Sanjeev Roy of the British Council Library Learning Centre in Delhi says, "If I have to summarise in one word, students have all talked about the 'experience'. We gave a questionnaire to those already doing our programme and they seem excited about the online learning experience. We're overwhelmed by the response we received for our three courses. Though advertisements were released only in Delhi, we have students from all over India, including Guwahati, Patna and Srinagar".
"Thousands of students have done our courses and the feedback is excellent," claims Karthik KS, founder-President, 24x7Learning, a portal offering online courses in IT, business skills and telecom. "We work primarily with organisations where these courses help upgrade the existing skills of employees. Since they are used by corporates it is obvious that they are career oriented," he argues.
Vicky Phillips, CEO, GetEducated.com, an American elearning research firm, feels that the most popular online courses in India at present are in computer related areas such as programming, professional education and certification programmes like computer networking.
However Karthik says, "Until recently IT skills were popular. But now business and soft skills are increasingly popular. This is based on our market research, the enquiries we receive and also the final contracts that we sign up".
For whatever course you sign up for, the most striking feature could be the fees:
"All our three courses are priced at £3000, nearly 50 per cent less than the fee of the residential course that also entails living expenses," comments Roy.
"Costs can be high if courses are imported in India from the US. But American firms that export to India almost always adjust the price to the level of the local economy," assures Phillips.
Very popular in the West, this mode of education has not yet made an impact closer home.
"In India one large problem is that the telephone system is not as well developed or reliable as in the US. This hinders Internet access. More students may take up courses online if good phone or cable lines are available," observes Phillips adding, "Satellite and cable delivery to Internet kiosks is being tried at work sites".
Surveys show that students are generally as happy or happier with Internet education as they are with face-to-face programmes. Internet-savvy students with good computer skills are the happiest, while those who have already done well at independent study correspondence programmes do the best.
While Karthik feels that elearning is no different from classroom training except for the medium of delivery, Phillips opines that online courses require more discipline: "Online students must have good time management skills and possess the motivation to complete courses without having an instructor remind them that homework is due."
Meanwhile, as students slowly warm up to elearning, vendors vie for the top spot.
NIIT's Netvarsity.com offers beginner to expert-level courses, and even allows you to select a few modules instead of the entire programme. It hosts features like First Access - news on the latest IT buzzwords, inventions and breakthroughs in technology. The site also claims that all doubts are answered within four hours of posting.
Satyam's elearning portal SESL implements a live collaborative tool, LearnLinc, while E-gurucool offers solutions to help you write 'ideal' answers - stepwise and pointwise - just the way the Board expects. Their mission: To take learning 'Beyond the constraints of time and space'.
The 'touch and feel' experience in Web-based learning is created using simulations, online mentoring and collaborative learning. The 'Web guru' facilitates the virtual classroom and offers advice on a variety of topics. The concept of eILT (Electronic Instructor Led Training) has made it possible to constantly monitor a pupil's progress while giving him the freedom to interact with other global classmates. Some courses even send automatic email reminders if a student has not worked for a period of time, asking "Do you need help?" In addition, chat rooms, message boards, video and audio conferencing, links to library facilities and virtual field trips allow international peers to exchange ideas.
But watch out! "There are about 75 'fake' Internet colleges operating at present. These often try to recruit foreign students unfamiliar with US accreditation policies. Make sure that any college programme is accredited," Phillips warns.
"I personally feel that you can never replace a human being, ever" says Karthik, "But elearning has tremendous advantages and should be used along with occasional classroom sessions".
"Online courses will never completely replace residential courses," agrees Phillips, "They are best used by people who have access problems to a training center or college. Studies show however that when online learning is compared to residential learning there is generally no difference in quality".
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