E-Learning – An Overview: E-learning, as the term itself describes, refers to the process of learning using electronic media. In e-learning, we use electronic technologies like mobile, computer and internet to access educational curriculum from outside the classroom, ideally from our home.  In most cases an e-learning course refers to a programme or a course or a degree delivered completely online. E-learning courses are mainly delivered through online and in most cases, students can watch it live from anywhere via the internet while the teacher is teaching from a remote location. Currently YouTube, Unacademy, Zoom application, etc. are the most dominant online platforms for live e-learning classes. Other than live classes, there are also pre-recorded e-learning courses where students are provided the pre-recorded audio-visual class in DVD or CD-ROM, Pen drive, Google Drive, Memory Card, etc. For the students now online assignment help is also available.

Why Is E-Learning the Need of the Hour?

“Necessity is the mother of invention” – there goes the age-old proverb by Greek philosopher Plato which means when something becomes essential, humans find ways of achieving it. So is the case of e-learning. There was a need for online learning for the time we are living in. Take Online assignment help if you need. We are living in a time when everyone is running out of time, everyone needs to maintain social distancing, everyone wants to reduce travel time and cost. And with the wide range use of mobile, computer and obviously internet, e-learning became an all in one solution for everyone – teachers, students and teaching institutions.

Like all other things in life, e-learning also has its opportunities and challenges. Let us go through everything in-details. At first, we will have a look at the opportunities that e-learning provides.

Everyone Can Access from Anywhere: The best part of e-learning is its accessibility to everyone. For example, now an online class in Oxford university can be accessed from a remote village in Africa. Many students’ dream of foreign education is not fulfilled due to various reasons, but not anymore. Online learning has made it a reality.

Lectures Can Be Taken More Than Once: With the advancement of digital technology, now it is possible to record live classes. So, if any student cannot understand the topic during live class, he can easily go through the entire or part of the class to clear his doubts. Pre-recorded are always available to use more than once.

Fastest Delivery of the Lessons: Online classes have faster delivery capacity of the content as compared to traditional classroom teaching methods. A study indicates that e-learning reduces learning time 30-50% in comparison with traditional classroom teaching.

Saves Time and Money: As online classes can be accessed from home it saves time and money for everyone. Now students and teachers need not bear the expense of travel to the education institutions. Both teaching and learning can be done from home.

Less Impact on Environment: As e-learning is paperless, it saves many trees from premature death. Besides, it is found in study that online learning consumes 90% less power and 85% less carbon di-oxide is produced. So, online learning indirectly helps us to protect our environment.

Now let us have a look at the challenges that are faced by e-learning.

Lack of Human Contact: Man is a social animal and we all like to interact with each other while learning or teaching. But in e-learning, especially when we are not using video conferencing applications, there is hardly any scope of human interaction and it might be a demotivating factor for some users.

Lack of Computer Literacy: In the second decade of the twentieth century, computer literacy has not reached the grassroot level of rural areas of many third world countries. Smartphones have eased the problem to some extent, but not completely.

Paucity of Internet Connectivity: Especially in rural areas, availability of internet connectivity is still very limited. For attending live classes, students often experience paucity of internet speed and it is a significant challenge for e-learning.

Lack of Self-Motivation: In online learning there is no one to push you for learning. There are many students who skip classes whenever they get a chance. In online learning, it becomes easier for those students to skip classes and do whatever they like.

So, overall, we can conclude that e-learning is a good step towards the betterment of the learning process. At the initial stage, we faced few problems. But once we sort out the challenges, it will work for the betterment of the learning process. Change in attitude, computer literacy and high bandwidth internet connection will make e-learning more fruitful than ever before.