[OP5] Benefits and limitations of online learning applications

Ko, Min-Jung Mon May 05 2008, 15:45

It is a well known fact that Korea is one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of online education. Every learner from preschoolers to college students has at least one chance to log in learning sites and study on them. Online learning has become a crucial part in learning in Korea day by day, which also suggests that it has a lot of benefits for learners. However, there are also limitations that we should take note of.

First, learners can organize their learning schedule depending on their level. In the classroom, teacher has to teach according to the schedule for the day, and the teaching object is usually targeted on the intermediate level students. Therefore the class could be too easy for advanced students and too difficult for lower-level students. However, in case of online applications, if the learner feels that the subject they are taking is easy they can skip it or play fast forward and go to the next chapter. On the contrary, if the learner can't keep up with the subject, he/she can replay and study it over and over.

Second, learners can learn from teachers they prefer. In classroom we learn from one teacher without any given choice. Whether the teacher is humorous or boring, has many years of experiences in teaching or not, it is the students' luck that year. Just as each one of has a different learning style, so each teacher has his/her own teaching styles. Some teachers can explain as in detail as possible, others can suggest lots of materials and give students some time to think and solve the problem on their own. Students can choose their preferable teachers, which can lead to more effective learning and motivate them a lot more.

Third, there are no interactions between teacher and students in terms of negative aspects. While teacher controls the class and give feedbacks to students in appropriate time, online learning can't check whether the students are keeping up with the learning. Students might open the window but be busy with chatting with friends, and there's no way to know whether the students is studying or not. Also, when the student has a question, he/she has to wait until the web-teacher has time to answer it or might not get the answer forever.

Everything in our life has good and bad aspects. The important thing is that the wise user maximizes positive aspects and minimizes negative ones. Online learning is undoubtedly a brilliant mean of learning. It would be the user's responsibility to fully utilize it.