The Future of e-Learning

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The Future of e-Learning
Gisela Parrilla
EDU 655: Trends & Issues in Instructional Design & Technology for Online
Instructor Stephen Law
October 21, 2013
























The Future of e-Learning

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The Future of E-Learning

It is my opinion that e-learning will continue to grow by leaps and
bounds for some time to come. I remember the days when distance learning
was popular. The schools will send you text books and work to be done, and
you did it, and mailed it back, and waited for the other lessons to come. We
have come a long way from that, in that we can now work at a much faster
pace, and still get as much if not more work done in the same amount of time,
without having to mail work, and/or wait for new work to arrive in the mail.
The internet has become a huge technological breakthrough, more
important than radio and television. Since it got possible to exchange instant
messages with any person who has internet access, the global network found
its use in the field of education. (LearningMind) It is safe to assume that in
the future, this trend will continue to grow. As we know, e-learning is not for
everyone, as some learners still greatly benefit from a traditional classroom
setting, where they learn in a group with their peers with great technological
tools to enhance their classroom learning experience. However, some learners
will still prefer to learn independently, be it to simply not be in a classroom, or
due to having families and/or careers, and just not having the time to attend a
traditional school setting. I think that the economy has taken a different turn
in the recent past, and as such, some folks have decided to go back to school to
have promotional potential as well as still being able to keep their regular work
schedules as well as not having to disrupt their families with their absence.
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The article by Terry Heick, 30 Incredible Ways Technology Will Change
Education by 2028, lists some potential changes to education by years, and the
one that struck me the most, was the changes for 2015, which included
adaptive computer-based testing which will begin to slowly replace the one-size-
fits-all assessment of academic proficiency. I think to me this is one of the best
ideas I have had the opportunity to come across. As a parent of a child with a
slight learning disability, but is incredibly smart, I see the way these
standardized tests single students like my son out, when in reality, he has the
same capabilities as another student, but simply learns in a different way, and
the standard way of testing is not a good fit for him.
If in the future, learning becomes more individualized even in the
classroom setting, where students would simply come in and sit at a work
station and work at their own pace, it would still be necessary to have someone
physically present to help assist students if and when technical difficulties
arise. Teachers and/or facilitators will have the task of keeping students in
check to make sure they are reaching the targeted goals and standards that
have been set in order to ensure learning. As we know, with each new
solution, comes some unwanted complication. In the case of learning done
individually, teachers and/or facilitators would have to find a way to ensure
that students are doing their own work and not having someone else do it for
them, or they being the ones doing someone elses work. I think teachers will
also be needed to assist students who may be having difficulties working
entirely alone, or need guidance. If a student fails to meets the goals, then the
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student will need some form of remediation on the subject matter, and the
teacher will be there for that purpose. Teachers will also serve as motivators
and encouragers to succeed. Sometimes students need that small bit of
motivation to keep them in the right direction. It is also important to
remember that computers alone will not teach the needs for someone to
determine and create what and how a subject will be thought is very important.
A computer can only serve as a tool to achieve goals and standards; they do not
create the standards.
Learners will have to be able to function individually as well as honestly
to ensure their own learning. They would need to understand the benefits and
consequences of their actions if they choose to do wrong or simply not perform
like they should because they are able to learn at an individual pace. Students
will need to learn self management and self discipline skills in order to thrive
individually and at their pace. They would have to understand that although it
is at their learning pace as individuals, they still have certain deadlines to meet
and expectations to meet.
Although e-learning is done individually, and at a students pace, I think
that to measure its effectiveness exit exams would have to be conducted to
ensure retention and mastery of subjects thought and learned. In most cases,
the same technology students use to learn, can also generate the info need to a
certain extent. The computer work stations students use can generate data
that includes assessment results, log in information, and possibly generate the
information based on areas that need more work, or the areas that do not need
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more work or need to be addressed. However, how you judge the effectiveness
needs to be determined before the class is put into practice, and re-evaluated
after to determine if the desired results were yielded or not. Action plans need
to be in place in the event the desired results are not achieved and changes
need to be made. It is also important to collect feedback data from the
learners. At times, the learners themselves can express if they feel they are
learning or not, are they retaining the information being thought, and/or if
there are any changes and/or adjustments that need to be made in order to
make their learning experience more effective.
There are various methods of collecting feedback data, which include
email surveys, paper surveys or questionnaires, using social media, or simply
asking questions and listening to their responses. (Kay, 2011)
It is important to keep in mind that technology is only a tool to achieve
learning goals. Designing courses although you design them around the tools
that you plan to use, is not solely about using the tool. Yes, learning how to
use to tool to its full advantage is necessary however, the tool should not be the
main focus, but rather how learning will be facilitated to achieve the desired
learning outcomes.
Learning is a lifelong process, and in the future, as e-learning evolves, I
think but the teacher and the student will learn immensely from each other.
Students will learn and teachers will learn how to be of better service to their
students using the tools and methods that increase student attention,
retention and help them to achieve their learning goals. In the future students
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will be offered the skills and learning resources that are catered to their
personal interest, skills, aptitudes, and previously learned skills, and they will
do so while playing games or from informal learning, learning by peers and/or
their communities. It is important to understand that learning does not only
happen or take place inside of a classroom, but a lot of learning is done outside
the class in an informal learning setting. Skills may be taught in the
classroom, but they are usually put to the test outside of the classroom, and
are better retained when they can apply learned skills to a real life situation.
The future is going to call for teachers to incorporate their lessons into life
situations. Designing lesson plans that can accommodate all the students will
be essential due to classes no longer being separated by special needs. Having
teachers that can develop or design lessons that would allow all students to
thrive will be critical and key to student success. Students should be able to
gain and acquire twenty-first learning skills to ensure their success. Their
lessons should not just be on a particular subject, but incorporating other
subject areas so they could learn the relations of all subjects in to the life. For
instance, years ago, math was simply a math class, while history was simply
history, and nothing meshed or went together, and no similarities were drawn
to show relations. However, I have noticed that now, my children apply their
math skills to their history class by conducting small research such as what a
recession causes, and how it affected the recessions of the past? Lessons like
this, thought them how to understand why they are learning what they are
learning, and the importance of it all. English teachers are assigning small
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writing assignments based on current financial or controversial current events.
English and math teacher are working together, to have the students
understand how the shutdown affected families, by simply having them look at
it from a financial point of view (math) and write a short essay on the effects
(English/grammar). This not only taught the students about the importance
of current events in their lives, but also how one thing relates with the other.
The future will call for students that are more informed and can function in the
modern world. There are a series of YouTube videos that I enjoy to show to
students and teachers alike, and they are called Did you Know? These videos
are updated by years, and give you little known facts. In the Did You Know 3.0
video, it is said that the jobs that the top ten in demand jobs in 2010, did not
exist in 2004. This alone tells us that we are not just teaching and training
students, but we are preparing for jobs that possibly do not even exist.
Meaning, we have to be able to adapt to the rapidly changing times, and be
prepared for it all if we want our students (as well as the teachers) to succeed.
(VideoShredHead, 2012)







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References
Downes, S. (1998). The Future of Online Learning. State University of West
Georgia.

Heick, T. (2013, March 19). 30 Incredible Ways TEchnology Will Change
Education by 2028. Retrieved October 18, 2013, from TeachThought:
http://www.teachthought.com

Kay, W. (2011, November 8). What Everyone Ought to Know About Measuring e-
Learning Effectiveness. Retrieved October 18, 2013, from LearningPool:
www.learningpool.com

LearningMind. (n.d.). The Future of e-Learning. Retrieved October 18, 2013,
from Learning Mind: http://www.learning-mind.com/the-future-of-e-
learning/

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and Issues in Instructional
Design and Technology (3rd ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson.

VideoShredHead (Director). (2012). Did You KNow 3.0 [Motion Picture].