Top five reasons to learn online

Authored By:

Ally Sobol

Online learning is creeping into our education system whether we like it or not. While there will always be people who prefer a paper book to a kindle, and an in-person classroom over a computer, here are the top five reasons we urge the latter to reconsider.

It’s just as academic

If an online course is done right, the people who are creating it are the same people who write curriculum for your in-person classes. What is the difference between words written on a piece of paper, and words typed out on a computer if they are the same words?

If you’re not sold yet – did you know that most online courses still have teachers going through the course material with you?They will give you feedback on your assignments, and some courses even host weekly live meetings for you to chat with your tutor about the material. We’re talking virtual live classrooms friends. The future of education is digital.

It’s accessible

For in-person classes, either you need to be in a geographical location where the class is offered, or a chunk of time and money to get to that said location. If you’re not a fulltime student, carving out the time to attend a physical class can be hard or even impossible.

If you have a computer with internet access, you can take an online class. To our friends in rural locations across the globe, you can have the same educational training as our peers in big cities thanks to online learning. Demographics don’t matter on the world wide web.

It’s cheaper

This speaks for itself. Online courses allow you to save that $$ without having to give up the academic quality. Spend smarter, not more.

It lets you learn how you want to learn

We all have different learning styles, just as we have different communication styles, different interests etc.. An good online course will present materials in different ways: readings, videos, podcasts, discussion boards, individual and group assignments to name a few. If you’re a visual person, chances are your online course will have an option to learn the material visually. Prefer to have the information read to you? That’s likely included in your online course as well. Online courses let you maximize your learning.

It connects you to people

Since geography doesn’t matter with e-learning, you can be in a class with someone from Texas, Maine, India, Venezuela, France, and Japan. You can meet people from different backgrounds and different cultures. What’s more? You can learn from them. Online learning lets you connect, teach, and grow from people you never would have met otherwise.