BE OPEN Academy

The phrases ‘eLearning’ and ‘Distance Learning’ are often used interchangeably, but they’re actually two separate entities. We’ve teamed up with experts, to help you see the differences between the two, and how they affect you as a learner. Here’s everything you need to know.

What Αre eLearning And Distance Learning? Before we look at the differences between the two, we need to understand what these two concepts actually are.

eLearning: this form of learning is designed to create an online communication between the teacher and the student. Many schools are now using eLearning in order to complement the learning that’s done in the classroom. For example, homework may be set online, or quizzes can be taken with the rest of the class. It’s a new way of learning that suits a lot of learners, both school-aged and adult. Tutor James Anderson at State of Writing says, “We use eLearning in order to connect with our students. They can connect with us online, and we can work with them to improve their writing skills”.

Distance learning: this concept is more about the distance between the student and the teacher, and how technology bridges that gap. Many universities are now offering distance learning degrees, where the student attends school through their internet. That means a student in Europe could attend an American university, without ever having to move. It also makes attending higher education much easier if you live in rural or remote areas.

How Learning Works Online. Both methods of learning are able to help learners get more out of learning, wherever they are. The methods are slightly different, but they can overlap.

eLearning is used in local settings, so distance isn’t as much of a factor. For example, a teacher may use a quiz app to test children in their classroom. They can all get involved, and it makes learning fun for them. As well as this, it gives teachers more options in how to create engaging lesson plans. It’s helpful for adult learners too. eLearning can be accessed anytime and anywhere, so it fits into most people’s busy schedules. The ease of access means more adults are taking online courses and classes, to learn skills to get ahead.

Distance learning, on the other hand, is designed in order to be accessible no matter where you are in the world. It covers issues such as accessibility problems, so students can attend basic classes. This can be through webcams or chat programs.

The Benefits Οf Both Systems. There are benefits to both eLearning and distance learning. If you’ve never considered either of them before, then here’s why you may want to look into it further:

eLearning

• Makes learning more interactive. Many learners are turned off learning as they feel they’re just being talked at in the classroom. eLearning makes the process much more interesting and interactive. Their input is needed, and it helps them retain information better.
• Is convenient for adult learners. As mentioned earlier, adults find learning much easier when they’re doing so through eLearning systems. For example, Via Writing has found adults coming to them to improve their grammar skills, during their free time.
• Is at the learner’s pace. The learner can take part in learning at their own pace. There are eLearning materials that can be accessed whenever they need to be, meaning that the learner doesn’t have to worry about falling behind, or being ahead of the rest of the class, as there’s no class to hold them back.

Distance Learning

• Offers cheaper education. Distance learning can be a great option if you’re looking to save money on your education. As you don’t have to move away to a different city or country, you’re saving a lot of cash. As well as this, you’re also saving money on the courses themselves, as they’re often cheaper.
• Offers you the chance to take classes wherever you are. No matter where you are, you can take classes. This option is popular with people who need to stay put at home, such as parents or people caring for family members. It takes the pressure off you to get to a place of learning, so you can concentrate on what you’re learning instead.
• Gives you the opportunity not to take part in the classroom setting. Some people find that the classroom setting isn’t for them. This could be due to a disability, or simply because they’ve never enjoyed conventional learning. Websites like Grammarix have seen an upswing of visitors who are looking to learn at their own pace.

As you can see, there’s actually a real difference between eLearning and distance learning. eLearning is a style of learning, while distance learning is a method of attending class even if you can’t be there physically.

Traditionally, campus is perceived to be ‘the face of the university’, and the very idea of ‘going to the university’ is connected in our mind to the image of the campus as a physical place. However, given all the debate of the value of ‘traditional’ university education today, little is said about the value of campus life. There is every reason to believe that the impact of higher education increases dramatically when students in the university live on or attend campus offering a robust campus life program and an opportunity to interact with a range of people and ideas.

The  emergence  of  the  campus can  be  traced  back  to  the  universities  of medieval  Europe  where  scholarly  exchanges  occurred  in  intimate cloistered  settings.  Since then, universities created  a  strong  relationship between  learning  and  physical  place, with campus being a space that gives meaning to the learning process. Today, it is still a setting that provides the opportunity for social and intellectual interaction with a scholarly community as well as a place that engenders knowledge, self-discovery and personal transformation.

Dr Sarah French and Professor Gregor Kennedy of Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education point it out, that over  the  course  of the  twentieth  century  the  role  of  the  campus  underwent  a  series  of  transitions. Universities  gradually  became  less  elite  and  more  inclusive  as  student  populations  expanded  beyond  the demographic  of  the  white  upper-class  male.  To accommodate  expanding  student  numbers,  they  became increasingly  larger  in  scale.

On the other hand, with the advance of distant education and online learning as well as development of social networks into informal learning communities, it became possible for students to study without physically attending a campus. The historical role of the campus was therefore displaced, giving way to non-campus based forms of learning. As a result, the pattern of students participation is changed correspondingly. According to the studies conducted by the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, university students are attending campus less and choosing online modes of learning more due to the availability of online resources such as lecture recordings and class notes, and the increased number of hours students spend in paid employment and family commitments. To put it short, modern students are viewing physical attendance at campus more as an option than a necessity.

However, as Dr. Loren Rullman, Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Grand Valley State University, perfectly puts it: ‘Going to a football game is very different than watching it on television, and experiencing new music, food, people, languages, music and ideas is very different than simply reading about them.’ As some formal learning activities move online, the reasons that students attend campus are changing too, mainly centering on opportunities to engage with academic staff directly, to participate in collaborative and interactive learning with peers and to be involved in social networks and activities.

The changing educational environment has prompted universities of the 21^st century to reconsider the role of the physical campus and redefine the campus experience. In his provocative  report  on  the  issues  facing  Canadian universities today, Stephen J. Toope argues that students will only continue to attend campus if two conditions are met: first, the  university  must  have  a  superior reputation or ‘brand,’ and second, the university must create an on-campus experience that is ‘so rich and unique that students feel drawn to participate actively’. Dr French and Professor Kennedy refer to University Trends: Contemporary Campus Design by Coulson, Roberts and Taylor, saying that the past decade has seen extensive interest in  the  physical  spaces  of  universities  within  the  fields  of  architecture  and  design.

There is a reverse side of the coin, as Dr. Rullman highights. With media constantly reporting about higher education spending on lavish campus facilities in recent years, campus today is often associated with “luxury dorms” or “amazing recreation centers,” and other seemingly excessive amenities. This makes one think that students are only attracted to luxurious campus facilities and that universities are motivated solely by the pressure of an amenities arms race.

Rullman emphasizes that to improve value for students and their families and aid public understanding, colleges and universities must insist on educational and institutional outcomes for facility development, having a clear picture of how the creation of new recreation centers, student center buildings, student success offices and similar facilities will contribute to the sum of a student’s education. “They do not replace what is in the classroom, and they should not be the primary reason a student selects a college. Most important, they must be responsibly developed to serve the institution’s mission,” he goes on.

Put it another way, newly designed  university  buildings  and  campus  spaces  should reflect  key  shifts in approaches to teaching and learning. For example, as lecture-based teaching methods have  become less dominant and collaborative  learning  more prominent, new campus designs should include fewer lecture theatres and more spaces designed for conversation and  interaction.

So what are the real reasons why colleges and universities should invest in their facilities? What is the true value of campus these days?

In their eponymous article, Dr Sarah French and Professor Gregor Kennedy centre around six broad interrelated areas:

• involvement in a scholarly community
• face-to-face interaction with academic staff
• opportunities to engage with campus-based modes of teaching and learning
• opportunities for collaborative, interactive and informal learning
• opportunities for student engagement through participation in extra-curricular activities
• opportunities for social contact and developing friendships.

According to the authors, ‘coming  to  campus provides students with the opportunity to be immersed in an intellectual culture, to gain expert knowledge from scholars and to explore ideas with peers <…> Aspects such as an institution’s architectural history, contemporary design features, landscaping, and the provision of accessible and appealing spaces in libraries, cafes and outdoor areas can all enhance the sense of involvement in a scholarly community.’ But what is more important, being on campus allows students to interact with academic staff benefiting from their expertise in specific disciplinary areas. Quality feedback and advice from scholars can often be more effectively delivered in face-to-face discussions rather than in written or online formats.

Adam Weinberg, president of Denison University, supports this opinion, as he explains how students might benefit from mentorship on campus. Student development staff, such as deans, health and counseling professionals, push students to get outside their comfort zones, to listen and hear other students, to reflect on their own world views and choices, and to learn. This happens when students come into their offices, when they supervise student employees, in meetings with student organizations, and when they bump into students walking around campus.

Weinberg also quotes the book How College Works by Dan Chambliss and Christopher Takacs, which presents research from a ten-year study of 100 students to learn what makes a successful college experience. They write, that  mentors “shape in detail a student’s experience: what courses they take or majors they declare; whether they play a sport or join an extracurricular activity; whether they gain skills, grow ethically, or learn whatever is offered in various programs.” Simply put, mentoring relationships “raise or suppress the motivation to learn.”

Speaking of opportunities for interactive and informal learning, Peter Jamieson argues that the entire campus should be viewed as a learning space. Outside the classroom, campus spaces should foster face-to-face communication, conversation and interaction between students in informal settings, which develops such skills as problem solving and critical thinking as well as values and habits students will need as adults.

As Weinberg put its, ‘the learning happens everywhere in formal and informal ways. For example, residential halls become places where students take what they are learning in classrooms and use it to learn to live and work with a diverse array of people in an ever-changing environment.’

Weinberg also connects campus experience and success in life. In his article he cites the research by the Gallup organization (presented in the Gallup-Purdue Index) which finds participation in extra-curricular activities and other activities outside the classroom to be one of the most significant predictors of success. “Students need to develop a broad array of soft and hard skills. No single curriculum can do it all. There is too much to learn and too few classes and courses to teach it all. Campus life is crucial to closing the gaps between what we teach in the curriculum and what students need to succeed,” Weinberg advises.

Indeed, the campus experience provides opportunities for an extensive range of academic, co-curricular and social forms of engagement. Activities organized by universities include orientation programs, competitions, workshops, public presentations, career information sessions, leadership and mentoring programs, engagements with workplace and industry and internships. Equally, student-led activities provide important opportunities for students to be involved in clubs and societies, sporting activities, the performing arts and music, creative writing, journalism, student politics and various other activities that can cultivate skills in areas such as leadership and communication. Students who take on a leadership role in a campus organization face all the usual management challenges in the workplace and in civic life that will help them build leadership in the future ‘grown-up’ lives.

Last but not least are social possibilities of on-campus study. Significant number of people report than they have met  their spouse and closets friends at university. The same is true about collegial networks cultivated by social encounters while studying, which often prove to be valuable in the workplace.

To sum it up, campus-based education is a great way for students to learn to voice views, hear others, and understand how to work together to create the communities they want to live in. Some campus facilities are designed to expose students to people with different backgrounds and ideas that may be new to them, others offer spaces for them to learn about organizing people and managing meetings, while the third are entirely educational. “Recreation facilities, dining centers, cultural spaces and the like give students opportunities to practice, make mistakes, form opinions, explore values and learn, lead and follow,” writes Rullman. “These facilities are worthy of investment because student learning is worthy of investment.”

The world of academia is becoming more personalized and convenient for students thanks to recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). The technology has numerous applications that are changing the way we learn, making education more accessible to students with computers or smart devices if they’re unable to make it to class. Students aren’t the only ones who benefit as AI is also helping to automate and speed up administrative tasks, helping organizations reduce the time spent on tedious tasks and increasing the amount of time spent on each individual student.

A recent study from eSchool News discovered that the use of AI in the education industry will grow by 47.5% through 2021 as we move towards a more connected world. The technology’s impact will exist anywhere from Kindergarten through higher education, offering the opportunity to create adaptive learning features with personalized tools to improve the student experience. The technology may be able to better inform students what their job prospects may look like based on their particular narrative as well, helping them beyond their academic life. WorkFusion is helping organizations with smart automation platforms that can improve the grading and filing process in the classroom.

Here are four ways AI is changing the education industry.

1. The Automation of Administrative Tasks
   As previously mentioned, AI has great potential in automating and expediting administrative tasks for both organizations and professors. Grading homework, evaluating essays and offering value to student responses is where educators spend the most time. AI can already automate the grading process in multiple choice tests in order to allow educators to spend more time with students one-on-one, but the technology may soon be able to do more than this. Software developers are creating new ways to grade written responses and essays as well. The admission process is also set to benefit as AI can automate the processing and classification of paperwork.
2. The Addition of Smart Content
   The concept of smart content is a hot topic now as robots can create digital content with the same degree of grammatical prowess as their human counterparts, and this technology has finally reached the classroom. AI can help digitize textbooks or create customizable learning digital interfaces that apply to students of all age ranges and grades. One such system called Cram101 uses AI to condense the content in textbooks into a more digestible study guide with chapter summaries, practice tests and flashcards. Another platform called Netex Learning allows lecturers and professors to design a digital curriculum and content across a variety of devices, including video, audio and an online assistant. Virtual content such as digital lectures and video conferences are also a reality now thanks to AI.
3. Smart Tutors and Personalization
   AI can do more than condense a lecture into flashcards and smart study guides as it can also tutor a student based on the difficulties they’re having with class material. In the past, students had a limited window of time in which they could see their professors, meaning office hours or hoping they answer their emails. There are now smart tutoring systems such as Carnegie Learning that use data from specific students in order to give them feedback and work with them directly. While this AI application is still in its early stages, it will soon be able to work as a full-fledged digital professor that helps a students with their educational needs in just about any area of need. Also, these platforms will soon be able to adapt to a wide variety of learning styles in order to help every educator and student.
4. Virtual Lecturers and Learning Environment
   Even your actual lecturer may soon be replaced by a robot. Well, not entirely, but there are already virtual human guides and facilitators that can think, act and react with humans by using gesture recognition technology in a natural way, responding both verbal and nonverbal cues. A more digital learning environment is also becoming a reality with institutions such as the University of Southern California (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies developing smart virtual environments and platforms. The organization uses AI, 3-D gaming and computer animation to create real virtual characters and social interactions. This initiative includes more than virtual facilitators as augmented reality may soon be part of the classroom as well.

Connecting the World of Academia

We are already in the future of education as institutions all around the U.S. and the rest of the globe have added AI to the classroom, hoping that it will make the students’ work easier. The technology is also slated to improve administrative tasks and improve the way lecturers run their classrooms. Plus, the technology will save billions in administrative costs for institutions across the nation, reducing overhead costs and paving the way for a smaller staff to operate effectively.