Hello, I am here again with an exciting topic related to online classes. You are planning to join an online course, but really worried about how effective those online classes will be? It is very obvious and natural to have such a question to worry about. We, from our early school days to college or university. Have you seen and experienced a teacher standing near the blackboard or whiteboard and explaining a concept from the subject.
This is a scenario of traditional offline in-person class. But with the changing world of technology, our classroom also evolved into new options like what is trending now as online class. Today I will discuss some good points of online classes. And will try to understand how better or effective online classes can be for our training and education.
ONLINE CLASS – Great Learning Experiences
Contrary to beliefs of many, surveys and researches show that learning with online class and course are often better than traditional offline in-person classes. Well, this can sound pretty weird as we can easily understand and feel the environment of traditional offline class setup. Thus there arises no need for any reasoning to show or convince us with its effectiveness.
We are already in it from our childhood and thus we are confident in that. But though our traditional classes are really effective and very good education-wise. That does not necessarily mean or prove that online classes are any less effective. Let’s discuss some points that will tell us some positive features of online class. Thus make us feel how it also can be a better option and is no less than traditional offline classes. Online classes do have their own goodness and benefits. Below are only some points that can make an online class a champion method of studies and learning.
1. Great course contents
Online classes already lack greatly in classroom interactions with the teacher as well as fellow students. So how do the providers of such online classes or courses compensate for this issue? Better course content is the best way to compensate. So institutes running such online classes and courses always pay their best attention towards better study materials and course contents.
Institutes with online courses would want to confirm the delivery of information through all possible ways and in the most effective way. This endeavor usually gives rise to high-quality study materials and documents, notes, etc which are usually not available generally. Equipped with such documents you can go quite a lot of distance without too much interaction from the teacher or fellow students.
2. Multimedia contents
In the same spirit as above, online institutes use any viable and possible method to give maximum effective information and education to the students. They use the technology to produce better quality study materials. Multimedia is such an option, where audiovisual and graphics technology is used to make different types of study materials like animations, videos, interactive audiovisuals, and so on.
Traditionally offline classes multimedia training modules are still not very common and instead mostly avoided. But those institutes who are into online classes will realize the essentiality of multimedia contents to reach to students for better understanding of the topic.
3. Study at your own comfort and pace
Every student does not study the same. Speed of every student is also not the same. In a traditional offline classroom, these factors are usually beyond the scope of consideration. Instead, it functions with a happy average system, so that every student can accommodate and fit into the model or system.
But in online class the story is different. Here each student can study at his or her own pace, own method and comfort. It’s true that you need to synchronize yourself with course schedules, faculties and other fellow students, but still you can have ample scope and freedom to organize your own daily and weekly study schedules, class viewing schedules, assignment schedules, etc.
Faculties will be there to help you in case you need but they won’t interfere into your regular study and class schedules directly. So you can have a lot of independence, and with independence comes responsibility… you have to be very responsible about your studies and progress.
3.View your class at your convenience
This is one great advantage of online classes and I would personally say that this is perhaps the best advantage you can enjoy over traditional offline classes. In an online training system, all classes including live streamed ones are usually stored in archives for future viewing.
So you can have the luxury to attend or view a class more than once, as many times as you want. You can even watch your desired part of a class instead of the full class again and again. To be clear, suppose one class is of 1-hour duration. In that whole time, you felt some 10 to 15 minutes of content very important or complex for you. So from next time, as many times as you want, you can view your “that” favorite section from the middle of the class instead of viewing the whole class. Even taking notes also becomes so easy as you no more need to race with your teachers speaking speed. You can take notes at your own pace. So these are enormous advantages that one can enjoy which are never available in traditional offline classes.
High Retention, Low Dropout
This may sound a bit strange, but it is a true fact that online courses have lower dropout levels than traditional offline classes. There are perhaps two main reasons that can be responsible for this. One is relaxed schedules so that one can arrange his or her study schedules, assignment schedules according to their scope and convenience. Strict and non-flexible schedules of traditional offline classes are usually a main reason for the high number of dropouts as many students get tangled with their responsibilities and commitments at a job or home affairs.
And the second important point is that the duration of the course is usually more flexible than traditional offline courses. In traditional systems, it is almost a stigma when you drop an year, but in online courses, it is actually almost pre-supposed that you have full probability of dropping a year or even more if your financial or family or health conditions are not supportive. So this flexible approach of online courses make them more withstanding with different types of students from different spheres of life to join and participate in education according to their condition and convenience.