The Role of Online Education in the 21st Century 

The internet has become from nothing to now the largest and most accessible database in the world Internet has changed a huge amount of things in the world from the way that people communicate to the way that people are shopping for new clothes. On top of that internet now gives people the ability to also learn and study online. The new style of education is taking over and changing the face of the traditional way of studying. Online education gives people the chance to be in school from anywhere in the world and at any time of the day so it is more accessible than it has never been before. When covid-19 hit the world it forced everyone to stay at home and this is the point when the education system turned a new page by starting to hold classes online trough platforms like Teams and Zoom. A lot of schools saw during the covid-19 that the online lessons are working well and that lead to schools leaving the possibility of online classes for students. The possibility of online education has also been really good for people that are already in the working world. Online education gives them the opportunity to higher their education while also working in the same time. Online education is so flexible when you can do your school tasks etc at any time you want to, so that’s why it is also so compatible for people that are working at the same time. With all of this said, it is known that online education will slowly become more and more usual and likely it will with time become just as used as the traditional education style right now.  (Kenznow)  

Benefits of Online Studies 

One really good thing that comes with online education is that you can do it from anywhere in the world basically, for example you can do it from your couch at home or you can do it from abroad on your holiday. It is not that unusual that people have something why they need to leave somewhere or they have a reason why they couldn’t make it to the class at school, this is where online studies become really handy. So it allows people to modify their daily schedule between the school, work and at home responsibilities. (EHL Insights) 

With online education, students have the accessibility for a lot more wider table of different courses that they would have in their own school. While the student has the ability to study from anywhere in the world, the teacher also basically has the chance to teach from anywhere in the world. A lt of times the courses might be pre recorded by the teachers, which basically gives them the freedom to do it from anywhere they want to. All of this will give the opportunity to construct their studies from all of the subjects they like the most outside of the studies that are required for a certain degree. Which allows the students to actually enjoy the studies that they are completing, this is a positive thing because it will also result in increase of motivation when the student is enjoying the studying (EHL Insights)  

Disadvantages of Online Studies 

While studying online has a lot of good in it, it also has a lot of disadvantages in it. Online studies has for example a high risk for causing isolation to people when the students never see each other in real life. This can in worst cases lead to loneliness and possibly even depression for the students. We as humans have the need of validation and also the need of feeling noticed and if the studies are done completely online, it can be really hard to get those if someone for example does not really have a social life outside if the school. The lack of human communication can likewise lead to these things mentioned above. The online studies has also resulted in lack of communication skills because the communication has been so little between the students and the teachers during the courses. Which has been seen in the working life when the students that have gone trough online studies have a really hard time to work for example in a team setting.  (Tamm 2023.) 

Online studies also require a big amount of self motivation from the students. When the studies are much more flexible than normal studies and for example cheating is way  more easier than normally because no one is watching if you are watching for the answers from the internet or not. This can be seen as a really bad thing because a lot of times when you are not really sure what the right answer is you will just end up looking the right answer from the internet because it is so easy to find it. Which will not result in learning for the student. When the teacher is not constantly pushing the student to learn and do their homework, it can lead to some of the people not learning and just cheating their way trough school. This is why the students need to have or find a way to build a certain level of self motivation which drives them to learn and actually do the tasks that they are set to do. (Tamm 2023.) 

Conclusion 

To conclude all of this, It can be seen that the new style of doing studies online has a lot of good points in it, but it also has a negative effect since it requires so much from the student itself. The online studies are constantly becoming more and more popular and I think that the real effectiveness of it will be seen in the future when we have more numbers and results of how it has gone.  

Sources :  

Kenznow. Top 10 Benefits of Online Education in the 21st Century. Read on 1.11.2023. https://www.kenznow.com/articles/lifelong-learning/top-10-benefits-of-online-education-in-the-21st-century/  

EHL Insights. 11 Advantages of Online Learning. Read on 1.11.2023. https://hospitalityinsights.ehl.edu/advantages-of-online-learning  

Tamm, S. 2023. 10 Biggest Disadvantages of E-Learning. Read on 1.11.2023. https://e-student.org/disadvantages-of-e-learning/