Although classroom education offers indispensable benefits, especially for young people, the resources that online education offers to facilitate and diversify teaching are undeniable, making it more attractive and creative.

Changes in education

Let’s start with a simple fact: the conventional model of education in the classroom, the one that we have been subjected to forever, with simple expository classes, started in the 18th century.

In this model, established in the pre-electricity era, the teacher is the absolute owner of knowledge. It is up to the student to just sit, listen and decorate, being nothing more than a container of information.

But everyone knows that with the passage of time and advancement in technology, this reality has changed. Nowadays, information is available to everyone, easily and abundantly.

The internet plays a fundamental role both in the way we obtain knowledge today and in the way it spreads, becoming an enormous facilitator.

Salman Khan, American educator and founder of Khan Academy, a free platform of online education acclaimed for its teaching method and efficiency, said the following:

“Technology today allows us to evolve. With the inverted classroom model, the student watches a 10-minute video about the lesson and takes doubts and conclusions to discuss at school. The classroom becomes a place to share content. The new tools create countless possibilities. The new generation lives on social media and loves video games. Why not use these things for education? ”

– Elearning Market Growth 

And although online teaching has been the target of prejudice for many years, this situation has been changing in the last decade and the question increasingly asked is: why not? After all, we can easily list its advantages:

• It does not require displacement.
• It allows the student to adapt his study hours to the rest of his routine.
• It allows learning at its own pace, advancing faster in subjects that are easy and spending more time in those that have difficulty.
• Eliminate Geographic barriers.
• With discipline and dedication, it guarantees a quality education with less costs and greater flexibility. 

In addition, online education makes all Internet resources available as a way to acquire information and enrich learning, since the student can make use of various means, such as sound, video, images, among others, to learn.

– Tips for using eLearning in school education

Technology, students and online education

There is constant talk about how technology is changing education and how teachers have to adapt to these changes. However, little is said about the changes that students are also going through.

The advances and technological innovations do not stop, nor the curiosity and desire to consume of the young public. 

With information coming in and being shared more and more quickly, it is no wonder that the old models of education need to shake up to handle this new generation connected 24 hours a day. 

Understanding how technology has changed and continues to change children and young people is essential to create a new way of educating, one that attracts interest and captivates the student.

 – Tips for creating online classes from traditional classes

Some changes and trends that at first seemed to be enemies of education, in fact can be used as teaching allies. Let’s see some examples:

Smartphones

Considered by many teachers to be a real “plague” in classrooms, it is difficult to find a young person without a smartphone today. However, the teacher can use this resource to his advantage, creating games that involve quick research or using social networks to post content and promote debate.

Videos

It is no secret that a video attracts more attention than a scribbled picture. Both in a classroom and in online education, instructors can use videos related to the subject as supporting material or create video lessons, offering the student the opportunity to review the main points of the lesson whenever they want.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

Multiple tools

As we mentioned, youth is fast and eager for news. Do not stick to the old double booklet and slide, use different means to make teaching more attractive, media that are part of the daily lives of young people, such as videos, podcasts, animations, etc.

Online learning

The number of online courses available is increasing and interest in a more flexible learning method and out of the classroom too. Students want to have more control over their time, as well as the ability to learn at their own pace.

Social networks

As difficult as finding a young person without a cell phone is finding one without a profile on any social network. Channels that take up a lot of time and receive a lot of attention from youth, social networks can and should be used by current teachers. Whether to disseminate and share information or to promote debates and create forums, social networks can serve as a powerful tool for learning. Adapt and use it to your advantage.

Finally, it is easy to see that, by understanding his students and the changes that have occurred with technological advances, mainly related to information, the teacher is able to find ways to make these changes work in his favor, arousing the student’s interest and improving the quality of teaching.

Tips to improve online and classroom education

Facilitating learning and raising the level of education, whether online or in the classroom, is the main goal of anyone who wants to be an educator.

– Blended learning: a combination of online and face-to-face learning

To attract the attention of a generation increasingly connected and bombarded with information is not an easy task. To find a solution, the teacher may have to ask himself: what was the class I liked most when I went to school? Why?

The answer to that question is usually the same: because the classes were fun. Because the science teacher used music to explain the subject or the math teacher took sweets to teach about multiplication and division. 

Harold Edgerton, a famous American professor, said: “The secret of education is to teach people in such a way that they don’t realize that they are learning until it is too late.”

To improve learning, this must be the educator’s key: using creativity to arouse the interest of students and make them actively participate in the learning process.

How to do this? Put your creative side to work!

To help, we’ve listed five ideas that you can apply to online and face-to-face education.

Create associations

To encourage and improve learning, the technique of creating associations is to relate new concepts to others already known, creating connections that are easy to remember. 

Our brain records information by associations. This means that we record more easily when new information is associated with something that has already been memorized previously.

Integrate content

It is important to emphasize to the student that he should not memorize the content, but understand it. To make this task easier, don’t just focus on the subject being taught in a particular chapter, create a context, explain how that knowledge applies in the real world.  

For example, do not settle for explaining a chemical bond, show what product it forms and how it fits into our daily lives. Create a sequence of facts that the student can understand as a whole and thus understand and memorize more easily. 

Encourage reasoning

Learning to ask is just as important as learning to answer. An interesting way to improve learning, attract the student’s attention and encourage participation, is not to deliver all the information chewed, but to launch questions and challenges on the subject and encourage debate, or reward those who get the answer right or give the best explanation.

This technique helps to stimulate reasoning, besides making the class more fun. 

Bet on the videos

Without a doubt, we are living in the era of videos, so nothing better to attract the attention of young people. Take advantage of the technology at your disposal and create tutorial and explanatory videos.

Another option is to record live videos in which students can participate, leaving doubts and opinions in the comments. Or even indicate videos and online classes instead of just texts as content for study and tests.

– Record video tutorials: tips for getting the best result

Make it easy with songs and rhymes

Music never goes out of style. Inventing parodies of a famous song or creating rhymes to teach about a subject is something that has worked in the past and will always work. 

Creating music and rhymes is a simple and natural way to transmit knowledge, in addition to making the class more dynamic and interesting. 

Remember that behind a good education, there is always a good educator, who is not content with just preparing students for tests, but strives to improve their learning through classes prepared with dedication and willingness to make a difference.

How to create and make online classes available 

The advantages of online education today are numerous, and can add a lot to the teaching given in the classroom.

With the pandemic, many teachers unfamiliar with virtual learning technologies had to rush to adapt and continue their classes in the online format.

– Step by Step to Create Online Courses

If for many it seemed difficult, with a Learning Management System, that is, an online platform developed with a focus on online education, this task is much easier.

– What is a Learning Management System

With Coursify.me, the teacher has a ready and easy to use platform, where he can upload the content in an intuitive and quick way.

The Coursify.me features integration with platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, which is ideal for teachers who want to provide video lessons.

In addition, the user can upload texts, images, audios and any other material that is hosted on Dropbox or on the computer itself.

There is no limit on the number of students, and the teacher has full control over who has access to the classes, being able to monitor each student to find out who registered, attended the classes and fulfilled the activities sent.

To learn more, visit our website, test the platform and bet on online education to continue teaching your students in the best possible way. 

The post Online education in order to attract students and encourage study appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Current scenario of online education in schools

The crisis generated by COVID-19, which caused the closure of schools and put the world in quarantine, launched a new look at the digital market and distance education.

Projections prior to the crisis already showed that spending on e-learning initiatives was already on track to reach $ 325 billion in the next five years, as educators seek to leverage the growing impact of digital education.

– E-Learning Market Growth

What has changed is the inclusion of elementary and high schools in this scenario, since distance learning was more concentrated in universities and free courses.

The coronavirus crisis is expected to be an opportunity to bring more technology to the classroom, just as it has been in China, where around 200 million students have started using distance learning since February 9 and only will return to the classrooms in early April.

“It will be a meeting of a generation of children and teenagers who are already very digital with teachers who are still stuck in an analog teaching model,” says Mário Ghio, CEO of Somos, in an exclusive interview with EXAME magazine.

The biggest concern of schools is trying to avoid losing the school year, considering that they usually have a mandatory number of teaching days to complete.

For schools that are beginning their journey towards digital learning initiatives, there is no rule that describes the ideal processes for implementing and adopting this method of education. Which makes the challenge even greater, as significant planning and preparation are required to ensure that online education is effective.

“We are seeing a great commitment from everyone who works with education to face this crisis. Everyone will leave with a different mentality of this experience.” says Mário Ghio.

Online education as mean to provide a deeper learning 

The crisis of the new coronavirus has affected the entire world almost simultaneously, which is why online education in schools is being debated by the vast majority of countries, who present their impressions and experiences.

According to the North Carolina e-Learning educational initiative, E-learning is “utilizing electronic technologies to access educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom”.

“I have real faith and confidence in the future of electronic education,” says Jessica Millstone, co-organizer of the New York EdTech MeetUp, which facilitates industry discussion about what’s working and what needs work in education. “It’s useful for our entire lives, and there’s going to be a hybrid moment where all the technology we’re developing for consumer and business experience will become part of e-learning as well.”

But, Millstone notes, “the most successful versions of e-learning revolve around a split classroom. While some assignments are completed online, there’s also a certain amount of content acquisition — teachers then explore it more deeply in the classroom.”

– Blended learning: how your school can combine online and offline teaching

The result? Online education in schools is not a single service model. Instead, it is a dual-purpose approach that offers:

• Problem solving: Physical school infrastructure is not always accessible. As a result, some schools adopt digital learning days to allow instruction to continue during adverse weather conditions or amid serious disease outbreaks.
• Practical supplementation: Emerging technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality, “provide a trajectory in which e-learning is integrating real-world experiences to provide deeper and more concrete learning,” says Millstone. With proper technological support, classrooms can be “incredible labs” that complement digital learning initiatives.

Millstone points to the advantage of a multimodal approach. In her experience, “the least effective model is to tell students ‘go learn this by yourself’.” Instead, she suggests starting with an independent technology platform, like Coursify.me, which allows teachers to connect with students inside and outside the school’s walls.

– What is an e-Learning platform

Advantages and difficulties of online education 

Both in online education as teaching in conventional classrooms, there are two types of students: assets, focused on learning as much as possible, and liabilities that do not show so much concentration or enthusiasm.

In both classes the task of promoting some change in this passive behavior and arousing the student’s attention and interest is largely up to the teacher. 

– Content for online courses

The good news is that when it comes to online education, there are several tools that can be used to achieve this goal.

– Tips for using eLearning in school education

To help make your online classes more interesting, we have listed four strategies that can make all the difference:

• Create an interactive virtual environment: create a forum or group on any social network that can be accessed by all the students. This generates a feeling of “class” that encourages interaction and helps teaching in a more relaxed way, eliminating that “obligation” character of the classroom.
• Allow the student to control his learning time: use tools that allow the student to pause the lesson and resume it from the same point whenever he wants. Providing flexibility for the user to access the material at the time that is most convenient for them is a great advantage of online education.
• Show that you are present: the figure of a teacher is very important for the student to feel supported and confident in learning something new. Make use of recorded videos or live streaming so that your students can see you and continue the relationship they have in the classroom.
• Encourage evolution: create a competition, a scoring system for those who finish each stage of the online class. Build a ranking. By transforming the learning process into something similar to going through the stages of a game, you make your lessons more fun and attractive.

Many people believe that when it comes to gamification in education, it is related to the complex task of developing a game. 

In fact, it is much more about taking advantage of some elements of this universe and applying them in the learning process, such as:

• Establishing missions and challenges;
• Scoring for each phase won;
• Ranking according to the score;
• Prizes: both at the end and throughout the game.

– How to implement gamification in eLearning

Currently, it is easy to connect the school to the universe of young people, as they are used to systems of ranking and distribution of rewards, present in the environment of games and digital media.

By promoting experiences that involve students, gamification helps to gain greater engagement compared to traditional teaching models.

Barriers to online education

For online education to happen, administrators need to think about the types of systems and devices needed for virtual learning.

It is essential to analyze and consider whether the student has the necessary technological infrastructure. For example, if not everyone has good access to the internet, schools may be better served by resources that have offline components or that require minimal connective bandwidth.

It is also necessary to verify that everyone has computers through which they can access classes, so as not to hinder the progress of any student.

Importance of the Online Education Platform

In order to effectively offer the benefits of online education to students, it is important that digital learning technologies work every time students try to access them.

“Reliability is as important as relevance,” Millstone says. “Teachers will try something once, and if it doesn’t work, they won’t try it again. A great product isn’t enough if it doesn’t work properly.”

For schools that want to successfully implement e-learning initiatives and learning management systems, this means carefully evaluating potential suppliers and products before closing any partnership.

Ask the following questions: Are they reliable? Do they have all the features I need? What kind of support do they offer? How quickly do they respond?

Attending schools, businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, the Coursify.me is a dynamic Learning Management System, ready to serve you.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

With all the necessary resources to enable and facilitate online learning, the platform has a friendly and fully customizable interface, allowing each school to maintain its visual identity, facilitating recognition by part of the student.

The Coursify.me features integration with other content platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo, which is ideal for teachers who want to provide lessons in videos.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

In addition, users can upload videos, texts, images, audios and any other material that is hosted on Dropbox or on their own computer.

There is no limit on the number of students allowed, and the school has full control over who has access to the classes, being able to monitor each student, to find out who registered, attended the classes and fulfilled the activities sent.

Visit our website, test the platform and bet on online education to continue teaching your students in the best possible way. 

The post How online education can support classroom education appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Depending on what you hear or read, distance learning can seem like a great solution or a huge problem. To make things clearer, we wrote this post.

Online Education: Everything You Need to Know

In an effort to clarify relevant online education questions and concerns, we’ve put together 8 key facts you need to know.

1. Online education is here to stay 

Since 1986, when an accredited institution’s first online degree program was offered (by John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California), the growth of the eLearning market has become exponential.

– E-Learning Market Growth

Recently Forbes magazine presented data showing that the online education market in the United States is expected to hit the incredible $ 325 billion mark by 2025.

A Global Market Insights survey brings recent data and forecasts about the online course market worldwide, which make clear this continuous and solid growth.

There is no denying that online education is an improvement caused by technology, which breaks down geographical barriers and is capable of bringing quality education to the four corners of the world.

Not only are people interested in learning, but teachers and professionals from all segments have discovered the potential of this market, and are investing in the creation of online courses as their own venture and a way to reach a wider audience.

– Top 10 Best Niches For Online Courses in 2019

In addition to free courses, thousands of students enrolled in America are already receiving some or all of their education online. Not to mention that people from all over the world can attend online classes taught at the most recognized universities in the world, such as Harvard and Oxford.  

Online education is a breakthrough and as such is here to stay and must evolve to be better and better.

2. There is no significant difference in learning outcomes

About 30 years of research, including the one of the US Department of Education, found no evidence that online learning is qualitatively inferior to that achieved in a traditional classroom. 

What is simple to conclude is that just as in the classroom, the quality of learning and potential knowledge gained depends on the student’s interest and effort.

The thought that eLearning is less rigorous, often comes from the fact that many people associate the practicality of studying online with facilitated teaching. 

Studying online is actually easier (and cheaper) than getting to a classroom at set times, but that’s an advantage, not the other way around.

Online courses may be more or less rigorous depending on the instructor who develops the course and the academic department that reviews it (if applicable).

In the case of free courses, unconnected with any academic organization, the student is free to review the course curriculum and determine whether it meets their needs and expectations.

– 7 Strategies for Building a Successful Online Class

At the same time, advances in information technology now make it possible to offer significantly more rigorous courses that do not seem “difficult” due to course design and support resources that can be directly integrated.

For example, a programming course, such as the Coursify.me Code School, can look at what subjects your students tend to have the most trouble with and incorporate access to tutorial videos in these classes to reinforce learning.

Employing new adaptive technologies, it is possible to observe a student’s learning style and tailor the organization and delivery of course instruction. 

With these resources, there are growing reasons to believe that online education can outperform traditional classroom teaching for certain students.

3. Online education democratizes quality education

As we mentioned earlier, several higher education institutions are offering online access to their classes. This includes elite US institutions, like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

This means that anyone with an interest in quality education can have access to it, regardless of where they live and their financial status.

The benefit that more accessible education brings to everyone as a society is clear.

Beyond universities, the growing number of online courses that address a wide range of subjects allows people to seek new knowledge, expertise and new career opportunities.

With this, companies also gain more qualified employees, and can use the same resource to train employees in a practical and much more economical way.

– Benefits of Online Business Training

4. There is no single form of teaching online

The formats that can be adopted in online education are numerous and vary by course and instructor.

Some courses feature text and video content only, others explore a variety of high-interactivity multimedia features, access to external links, animations, and high-quality simulations.

It is safe to say that most of the courses available today use the general public preference feature: videos.

Several surveys point to the exponential increase in online video consumption.

By 2020, is predicted that 75% of all mobile traffic in the world is to access video content.

Rich way to share information in an easily digestible format, it is now quite easy to produce videos using a simple smartphone or any camera.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

Ideally, though, you should use different media to expose content such as handouts, tutorials, audio and videos to make learning more interesting and enjoyable. Offer more options for students, who may have different learning preferences.

5. Online learning requires maturity

Much is said about the discipline required to complete an online course, and it is true.

While online education is appropriate and works for adult learners, this does not necessarily reflect in younger learners.

Studies have found that for motivated older adults, online programs produce superior results than those in the classroom. 

For 18 to 24-year-olds with less focus and attention, there are often problems with persistence and completion. 

In addition, while younger students may in fact benefit from blended learning (online learning combined with traditional classroom study), they still need the socialization and interaction experience that a classroom provides.

After all, it is in this environment that they “practice” these skills to become adults – living with others, reconciling differences, being held responsible for what they do and don’t do, and so on.

– Blended learning: a combination of online and face-to-face learning

6. Online education favors the corporate world

Adults do well with online learning and that’s great, especially for businesses.

The level of skills and knowledge that many organizations require today does not match what is taught at universities and there are few professionals able to deliver what is required.

This leaves no alternative for many companies than investing in employee training through business training.

– How to measure the effectiveness of your online business training

But there is a drawback: Organizing and conducting such training requires infrastructure and overtime from your employees, which can be quite costly.

Therefore, online education appears as a real lifeboat.

Online courses can take work to create, but once done, they are easily updated and accessible to all, new and experienced employees, at a time that suits them best.

With the emergence of hosting platforms that specialize in online education, such as Coursify.me, this solution has become even better, as companies simply “rent” a space to host their courses, without having to cover all the costs of developing a system of their own.

7. The economics are real

If you have read this post so far, the economics that online education generates should have become quite clear.

For universities there is less need for classroom facilities, printed materials, infrastructure maintenance costs, etc.

For students, there are no costs for commuting, school supplies, printing and high tuition. 

Not to mention the time savings, particularly important for students who need to reconcile learning with work.

People who study online can be anywhere in the world and study as long as their work routine allows.

This is of great help to low-income people with dependent family members as there are no travel, day care, loss of income due to the need to attend class at a certain time, etc. Here the economy is considerable.

8. Online education does not mean the end of traditional education

While online education may become the first choice for “post-traditional” and undergraduate students who cannot afford the cost of traditional programs, it will not be the only option. 

It is undeniable that online learning is here to stay, but neither schools nor universities will disappear. 

Society will always need the campus-based option to help young people become adults and citizens.

Society will also always need research-intensive institutions to continue the search for new discoveries and to provide the content that online learning distributes so well.

Therefore, there is no reason for disputes between both teaching methods and complaints to each other since they all benefit from the integration between the two.

Any progress in education must be applauded and encouraged so that it will educate and train better professionals and citizens, which benefits the whole community.

– What is the market view of online courses?

Online education with Coursify.me

Complete eLearning platform, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for anyone who wants to create, sell and advertise courses on the internet without having to invest to start their own business.

Serving businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, the platform is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System (LMS).

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Coursify.me offers three plan options for you to decide which best suits your needs and the good news is that the Beginner Plan is free!

Visit our website, test the platform, enter the online course market now and secure your place in this story.

The post 8 Things You Need to Know About Online Education appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.