E-Learning Technologies and Tools
Sayyed Danyal Alliy, Hammad Aslam
Bs080401532, Bc080400574
Abstract:
E-learning Technology and tools is nowadays becoming more and more popular. They are becoming more popular because they allow people to teach themselves through the use of computers and internet. This technology is now becoming more and more convenient for people around the world.
Introduction
E-learning is the process in which people can learn certain subjects or courses through the use of computers using the internet. The internet has made the world now a global village and community. These subjects which are offered from institutes and universities can be learnt through websites that are hosting video services, and online library tools.
Now a person doesn't have to travel long distances to train or teach themselves. The E-learning technology and tools help educate people across the globe, despite their geographic location. The students can learn by their own pace and convenient time periods. The students who also do part time jobs can also enjoy studying online and teaching themselves. As they have to manage their time for studies and their jobs as well. The students who study in e-learning environments don't have to be attending college or university regularly, as their assignments, quizzes are held online. They are informed through online announcements which are sent through e-mail and also through the online learning management system they are using. Final papers and Midterm papers are also held online, and students have to sometimes go to special centers to appear in their exams. The students are given usernames and passwords to login there papers and they are also given similar usernames and passwords to login in their learning management systems. International students and some domestic students, who don't testing centers for examination, are provided by I.T department a special software application that allows the students to connect to the main server for examination with a username and password.
Students who have questions or who seek help for solving assignments are provided with teacher and student special forums, where teachers can reply to student questions and similar queries.
Related work
There exist a number of E-learning tools and technologies. Now you can learn and take classes online, by using computers, laptops, ipads, and even from mobiles or smart phones. One of the biggest e-learning environments is the virtual university of Pakistan's LMS (Learning Management System). LMS is fully virtual and every student of virtual university of Pakistan can watch lecture videos, read handouts, discuss topics with instructors, see lecture schedule online. The virtual university of Pakistan's open courseware is one of the biggest online free course lectures store where everyone can get handouts related to him. In LMS we have to enter our id and password to access the learning management system. It uses efficient and powerful algorithms and procedures to protect the website. LMS and virtual university open courseware are not just the e-learning tools but there exist many other tools and technologies. Radio is also a great source of e-learning. Virtual university of Pakistan's also provide e-learning audio lectures through radio channels. These broadcasts are free to listen. In television virtual university broadcasts 4 channels that broadcast lectures of courses. These channels are also free. Not only students but everyone can tune these channels and can watch these channels to learn. Virtual university uses various e-learning tools and technologies to provide education to learners. These tools and technologies are radio, television, internet, videos, softcopy handouts, video calls and chats etc. By using Skype students can talk to instructors to discuss issues of related subject. It doesn't matter where they live. They can talk from anywhere in the world. Virtual university also provides lecture CD's not only to its students but anyone who wants to learn. These CD's are of very low price and one can order them virtually through internet. Virtual university hosts its video lecture free of cost on YouTube. Anyone having access to internet can watch these lectures and can download them for offline viewing. Students and any other person around the world can order CD's, DVD's and handouts from the online bookshop of Virtual University of Pakistan at very reasonable prices. Now we don't have to walk to bookshops to buy books and CD's. Handouts are also available free of cost at Virtual University of Pakistan's Open Courseware website. By using radio, one can listen to lectures of any course. The schedule of these broadcasts is available at the LMS website. So e-learning has opened new ways of getting education. It seems that in future there will be no classes but virtual classes. Student attends these classes by sitting at home. E-learning technologies and tools made it easy for everyone to get education from anywhere.
Problem statement
LMS (Learning Management System Model)
I choose the LMS as problem statement to discuss it. LMS of virtual university of Pakistan is a web application that allows students to get education virtually. As every technology has some disadvantages, e-learning also suffered from some disadvantages. Take the example of LMS which I have discussed above. First issue that I have figured out in LMS of virtual university of Pakistan is that there is no face to face interaction between students and teachers. This is one of the biggest problems of e-learning. To interact with the teacher student has to use the e-mail. This isn't an instant answering system and takes more than a day to get a reply from instructor. Also there are no classes where students can meet their friends and discuss course related issues. Normally e-learners use forms to interact and chat with friends. The students of virtual university of Pakistan do the same to interact with other students. There should be some video conferencing system so that teachers and students can discuss course related issues with teachers and students. As everything like submitting assignments, attempting quizzes, participating in GDBs etc are all done through internet. Any issue with internet can cause student difficulty in participating and using e-learning. Internet speed is also a problem faced by e-learners. Many students of virtual university of Pakistan have low speed internet. They have a great difficulty in attempting online quizzes, submitting assignments, discussing graded discussion boards. Many students of virtual university of Pakistan have low speed internet. They have a great difficulty in attempting online quizzes, submitting assignments, discussing graded discussion boards.
Proposed Solution:
Well there is always hope in the field of I.T. As now we have the ability to use IP phones and VoIP services. We now can use software's that support VoIP for video and voice communication. One of the most used VoIP software that is used worldwide today is Skype. So, I believe to improve the interaction and communication between students and teachers can be solved using these software's that support VoIP (like Skype). The universities that offer e-learning should also provide classrooms and an environment where students can meet at campus to discuss and share their ideas between each other. E-learning Universities should also provide students with events in which students can participate and compete with other university students as well. These events should include sports events, funfair events, concert events, programming, gaming and debating contests. There should also be trips that should be organized by Virtual University of Pakistan for its students.
Results and discussions:
There are plenty of solutions available for learners. These can be messengers, online libraries etc. Hence I.T is one of the most attractive ways of getting education now-a-days. So e-learning provides various advantages. It can be used to schedule classes and class work. Travel cost is reduced because we don't have to walk to colleges and universities. Student can search study material from various sources available on internet and can select material relevant to their knowledge. We can join boards and bulletins to join discussions and to ask study related questions. Students can chat and even talk with their classmates and with their teachers to discuss matters. So the result of the problem is that virtual university of Pakistan's LMS (Learning Management System) provides all tools that are necessary for e-learning and provides attractive services to students. The tools which LMS provides are chat service, email service so that students can send and receive emails from their instructors and from their classmates, file upload facility to submit their assignments and other research etc. The proposed solution Skype for easy communication between students and teachers is very powerful tool for e-learning. Through this tool we can arrange video conferences between students and teachers to convert it into a virtual class room where students can talk and ask questions with teachers and can talk to other students. Also teachers can also use video calling to judge the impression of their teaching and its effect on students. Skype also allows file sending which allows students to send files and research papers to teachers and o students. The screen sharing feature is also a powerful tool which can be used to monitor student's screens while doing papers and quizzes. This tool is commonly used for overseas papers.
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