Advantages and Disadvantages Of Online Education

With all of the different choices available now for continuing your education, how can one decide what is best? It can be very hard to muddle through all of the information and find what is best for you. If you are considering an online degree program, we have listed a few advantages and disadvantages for online degrees. We can't make the decision for you but we can supply you with the facts.

Advantages:

1. Flexibility. This can be a broad concept when talking about online degrees, but the flexibility allows you a lot of freedom. You can attend school and work it around your personal and professional obligations and you are able to "attend" school wherever there is a computer.

2. Improves your computer skills. You will constantly be on the computer and the internet so you will quickly learn to better navigate your way. You now have all of your knowledge at your fingertips.

3. More opportunities to be involved. You might wonder how you can do this behind a screen, but that screen has been shown to help get students more involved in class discussions. Since you do not have the actual fear of someone next to you making fun of you for raising your hand it has been proven that students participate more and digest the information better.

Disadvantages:

1. Lack of motivation. If you lack motivation in your everyday then getting an online degree may not be best for you. When you are on your schedule, you have to force yourself to be disciplined in learning the material. Only you can determine your success.

2. Lack of social interaction. When you attend a traditional school there is constantly things happening and you always see people. When you attend an online degree program there are days when you won't leave your house and your face to face connection with others will not happen.

3. Computer issues. Yes, this can be a disadvantage also. There are a million things that can happen with your computer and internet and they usually happen at the worst times. It will be important to always have a plan B in place in case your internet goes down or your computer dies.

Only you can decide what learning environment is right for you. Now that there is less of a stigma about obtaining an online degree, you are able to have more options. Whatever way you choose, you are one step further to your next degree.

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m learning: the Global Classroom Of Online Education

Adults and adolescents with Atopic Dermatitis in the USA, expectant mothers in Ghana, young teachers in Finland and pharmacists in Uganda all have one thing in common, they are part of the growing mobile

learning community, or mLearning. Educators use cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and other mobile devices to

reach students who are mobile, are isolated, lack internet access, or have limited resources for travel but have a mobile phone. mLearning in action. When 90% of the world’s population has access to a mobile phone, according to the International Telecommunication Union, it is no surprise that educators have already realized the potential of mobile devices to enhance and extend the classroom.

Adults and adolescents with Atopic Dermatitis in the USA received information and medication reminders via text (or SMS) from Massachusetts General Hospital. Throughout the study, 96% of the participants changed at least one behavior after receiving informational texts about self-care practices. These patients are not alone in their improved health behavior due to educational texts. In Kenya, patients undergoing Advanced Retroviral Therapy for HIV received text reminders about their dosage and appointments and had positive behavioral change related to their adherence to their treatment in a recent study. Expectant mothers in Ghana received voice and text messages regarding self-care during pregnancy and the care of their children. But sure, mobile phones can help adherence to medication regimens, improve information about healthcare and self-care and serve as reminders of appointments, but what about extending the more traditional classroom?

Young teachers in Finland use mobile phones during the teacher training period that includes heavy travel to and from training sites, to send feedback to other trainees, receive feedback from supervising teachers, to report back to supervising teachers, and to send photos of trainees and their classes back and forth to trainees and instructors. Using mobiles to send photos enhances the learning experience by connecting participants immediately through their own eyes. Students in Uganda also engaged in mLearning to extend their research while they travelled throughout rural regions of the country. These students communicated with their research supervisor via their mobile to reach benchmarks on the research progress and to overcome electricity and internet limitations at their research locations. The study recommends to combine mLearning tools, especially voice calls and SMS texts with more traditional distance learning approaches, using the internet when possible. Pharmacists in Uganda had the same experience as they underwent a “Virtual Pharmaceutical Training program” online and recommended the addition of mobile technologies and other blended approaches to eLearning.

mLearning in resource constrained environments presents an opportune space for teachers and instructors to reach their students more conveniently and efficiently. mLearning for adult education is only one form and the examples listed here are not exhaustive. Children who have access to mobile devices send SMS questions to teachers, teachers SMS parents regarding student progress, and learning laptops reach students in resourced environments. The important aspect of mLearning is that it is scalable to the needs and resources of students and teachers, patients and doctors, rural clinics and urban hospitals. As Jordan Hosmer-Henner discussed in his post “Marking the m-Health Movement,” mobile technologies are a game changer for development entrepreneurs throughout the world. mLearning is one more way mobile technologies are expanding the way we think and the way we interact with each other, making the classroom truly global.

Windows 8 smartphone slimmer, lighter, and energy efficient XPPhone

In Technology Group has seemingly dedicated itself to merging the Windows PC experience with the smartphone--something the company has dubbed the "post-smartphone." They started with phones running Windows XP a few years ago, and by earlier this year, ITG's XPPhone was available with Windows 7. Now it says a far slimmer, lighter, and energy efficient XPPhone 2 that will run both Windows 7 and the PC version of Windows 8 (once it's released) is in the works.

Though it seems doubtful to me that many consumers will find a need for so much Windows in their pocket, ITG has made sure to pack the XPPhone 2 with the meaty hardware to pull it off. This beast will boast a 1.6GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. ITG's Web site also mentions the possibility of an insane 2GHz model. There's also plenty of storage space to house Microsoft's notoriously bulky OSes, with 112GB on board.

ITG is billing the XPPhone 2 not just as a phone but as the "smallest notebook PC in the world," measuring 140mm X 73mm X 17.5mm. The pitch is basically that the phone is easily dockable and can stand in for a laptop, desktop and in-car navigation system.


The success of this kind of a device will likely depend on it being at least more usable than the English translation of its press release, which requires several aspirin to navigate, with sentences like: "The Editor considers that, presently it forms three camps of smart phone in the way of tripartite confrontation--The Apple, Google & Moto, and Intel & Microsoft & xpPhone, of which stands for three complete different technical orientations."

Let's hope they took the money they saved on their translator and put it into engineering.Engadget reports that we could see an XPPhone 2 release as soon as January.