The Internet is a Paradise for Lifelong Learning
Online education isn’t a new thing, but in recent years it has grown in leaps and bounds, both in volume and in quality. This is great for pupils still in school: projects such as Khan Academy build on the traditional school curriculum and support students in finishing their educations. Online resources also offers more tools to educators, allowing them to capture the fleeting interest of their students with multimedia, interactive material. But it doesn’t stop there. Educational platforms targeted at more mature audiences are also available online, enabling people to keep learning throughout their entire lives: lifelong learning. And learning outside of the classroom can have a number of advantages.
One distinct advantage of online educational resources is their modularity. Traditional educations consist of programs spanning multiple years and covering a wide range of material in a particular discipline. Online educational resources tends to focus on one specific topic and often attempt to instruct students in the span of an afternoon. This leaves a student more freedom to pursue their own interests from one topic to the next. Of course such an ad-hoc program would not be suitable to learn an entire profession: this is where the rigor of traditional education is more appropriate. But for lifelong learning we’re looking for enrichment rather than completeness. Besides, there are ways to compensate for the fractured nature of online education. More on that later.
Another advantage of online education is that it is not bound to specific locations or timetables. This allows students all over the world to learn at a time that suits them best and at a pace that’s comfortable to them. In contrast to traditional education which teaches students in batches, online learning experiences can be highly personalized. Texts, media and pre-recorded videos allow students to replay and review material that they failed to completely comprehend the first time. Automated testing can help students to find the gaps in their understanding, and can be used repetitively. Any problem that the student still faces can be directed at the online crowd, where fellow students or field experts are often available to help a student along. Online education puts the student in the director’s seat.
There is a variety of online educational resources, each with its distinctive characteristics. They vary in style, specificity of topic and nature of instructions.
Of all online educational resources, MOOCs are probably closest to traditional classroom education. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are backed by existing universities and are modeled after traditional college courses: they contain a number of lectures in the form of videos, they provide texts to read through and they test the knowledge of their students using multiple-choice quizzes or assignments of peer-reviewed papers. Students who complete such courses get a certificate to attest to their achievement, which they can list on their résumés. Platforms offering such MOOCs include EdX and Coursera. These courses are wildly popular, all around the world, both with people who have already finished college and with people who never had access to a college education. By providing these programs free of charge and without restriction, MOOCs are empowering new innovators all around the world.
Being modeled after traditional college courses and carefully curated by experts, MOOCs are by far the most rigorous in instructing their students in a certain topic. They avoid leaving students with blind spots by providing a thought-out program that covers all pertinent material. The consequence of this thoroughness is that students lose some of the freedoms that other education forms provide: they cannot direct the topic, and they are bound by a number of deadlines. Still, this may be an acceptable compromise in many cases.
Other online educational platforms focus on skill mastery. In this form of education the student is free to spend as much time on a particular topic as he or she requires, but cannot move on to the next subject until they’ve displayed mastery of the current one. Code Academy, for example, teaches people coding languages by starting with basic syntax and building upwards to advanced techniques. To progress to the next level, a student must complete a coding exercise. Khan Academy uses mastery learning for Math skills: the website charts numerous skills and allows each student to monitor their individual progress up the skill ladder, from the basic to the advanced. Khan Academy also makes great use of gamification strategies such as points, badges and achievements to keep students motivated.
One of the best represented forms of online education is instruction in one particular skill or topic. These don’t usually allow for student interaction, but instead convey the necessary information in text, images and/or videos. Such resources are scattered throughout the internet and can vary wildly in form, scope and level. Some examples:
- WikiHow: how to dress in Paris
- Youtube: how to play the guitar
- WikiBooks: Introduction to Paleoanthropology
- Wikipedia: Quantum Mechanics
These resources are the most free-formed: they allow students the freedom of choosing a topic, scope and level to satisfy their curiosity. The downside is that they do nothing to help students master the material. Rather, it is up to the student to decide how to approach the subject, based on their own motivation and discipline. Of course, if the student decides to absorb the material but runs into problems, there are online resources for that as well. Discussion of a particular online lesson can take place directly alongside it, if the platform allows for discussion. If not, there are general platforms for discussion, such as Reddit, or for requesting help or asking questions, like Stack Exchange. But it is at all times up to the student to decide which resources to make use of, provided they are able to find them. To quote an old cliché: with great power comes great responsibility.
Previous generations were told to finish school as quickly as possible, find a stable job and then settle in for the next 45 years. But the new generation of Digital Natives is growing up in a more complex environment and they are changing their practices accordingly. They keep jobs only for a couple of years, value rewarding jobs more than high salaries, and are experts in finding information and learning new skills online. I have high hopes that this generation will not take for granted the assumption that many of our elders did: that learning outside the classroom and for any purpose other than furthering your career is unnecessary and a waste of time. Our world is growing, faster and faster, and it is up to us to grow along with it.
