Did you know webinars can be used as an e-learning tool? But what is e-learning, anyway? E-learning – short for electronic learning – is a kind of training that involves the use of computers or mobile devices. Teaching resources are delivered to students online, which makes e-learning time and place independent.
Who can benefit from e-learning
E-learning is a perfect option for everyone willing or having to learn new things but not willing or unable to attend traditional classes at school or university. You can pick a course you are interested in and follow it at your own pace.
It is also an ideal solution for companies to train their employees. It lets an organisation arrange an online training for the whole team or selected team members and provide them with materials they need at a given moment.
Educational institutions such as universities, language schools etc. can also make e-learning courses part of their offer especially if they want to reach out to potential students based in other cities or countries.
Benefits for students
For students, the main advantage of e-learning is that they don’t have to travel long distances to a school or university to attend a course. They study without having to leave their home or office. E-learning is flexible so students can decide on the frequency at which they wish to study the materials they were provided with. This lets them progress at a pace that is most convenient for them.
A huge advantage of e-learning is that it makes it possible to enrol for a course or training unavailable from a local school or university.
Also, a teacher is available during an e-learning course. They meet students online, monitor their progress, check test results and advise on further steps they should take with regard to the training.
Advantages for educational institutions
With e-learning, schools or universities can reach out to very wide target audiences. Students from anywhere in the world, having computers or mobile devices and connected to the Internet, can attend their courses.
E-learning is often offered next to traditional training within one course. It’s a so-called blended-learning and it lets educational institutions enrich their offer with more attractive, interactive teaching tools, supported by technology.
Benefits for companies
Companies can provide employees with training regardless of how large their teams are and where team members are based.
Thanks to the fact that e-learning is assisted by a teacher, employees’ progress can be constantly monitored and team leaders (or whoever offered the training to the team) can be provided with regular progress reports.
And, last but not least, organisations can provide their staff with any kind of training they need at a given moment to learn new skills or gain the knowledge necessary for a new project they are about to start.
E-learning tools
There are a number of ways of delivering e-learning courses to students. One of them is a Learning Management System (LMS). It’s a complex e-learning platform that lets an e-learning provider (e.g. a company or an educational institution) create any course in a so-called authoring tool, a kind of comprehensive online editor. The course is then available from the platform, can be delivered to end users and easily managed.
There are also social platforms where people come to offer and look for training. You can, for instance, learn languages this way in services such as Italki where language teachers offer online conversations, send materials to students via email and assign them homework to keep them busy till the next meeting.
And, of course, there are webinar platforms, such as ClickMeeting, that let you host live webinars as part of your student-teacher meetings or record them and let your e-learning course participants access them any time they need.
Conclusion
A number of target groups can largely benefit from e-learning. E-learning tools, such as webinars, let them study at their own pace, no matter where they live and how much time they have. Thanks to a teacher’s assistance, they can discuss their results and take further steps to advance in their online education.
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