E-learning is the disruptive technology that is changing the way of learning and is transforming the world.
Face-to-face education is geographically exclusive since only in some places this training is offered. Face-to-face education is economically exclusive because good education is expensive. Face-to-face education is also academically exclusive; As the training process progresses, students with lower performance are separated. For this reason, in this model only a select minority manages to access the appropriate level of training that ensures professional and economic success.
Virtual education, on the other hand, is inclusive. As defined by Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, “it is a compromise between time and learning.” In face-to-face programs, time is limited or fixed – we have the 45 minutes that the class lasts – and learning is the variable: in these 45 minutes Paula learned 100 percent, Felipe 80 percent, and Juan 65 percent. In virtual education, on the other hand, learning is fixed – everyone learns 100 percent – and time is variable: Paula took 20 minutes for this lesson, Felipe took one hour and Juan three hours.
According to research by the United States Department of Education in 2010, virtual students perform better than face-to-face students. Additionally, virtual students tend to be self-motivated, self-disciplined, and self-directed.
One of the basic elements of the training process is transmitting information. Some teachers are good at it: they use charts, they make funny comments, questions that cut the monotony and so on. But it is not even better than a computer, which in addition to transmitting the information in the most suitable medium for the student: video, audio, animation, exercises, etc., can repeat it one, ten or one hundred times without feeling annoyed. In addition, it allows the student to stop to complement the information or solve doubts that prevent him from fully understanding the lesson. In the process of transmitting information, a human being, no matter how good, finds it impossible to compete with a virtual training system. This competition would be comparable to giving a pulse to a Caterpillar.
If the contribution of the teacher is added to the virtual training process to inspire, serve as a model and attend to atypical cases, we have an excellent training model in our hands, one that will undoubtedly allow that in the future all people have the ability to receive training adequately, regardless of their economic possibilities, and regardless of where they reside or their personal characteristics.
The main drawback with virtual education is that not all that glitters is gold. Unlike what happens with the precious metal, which can be 24-karat gold, 18-karat gold, a gold bath, or gold paint, in virtual training there is a tendency to believe that everything that comes online is virtual training, and it’s not like that. Putting a PDF (text) on a website for the student to read is not e-learning; it would hardly amount to a coat of gold paint.
There is a lack of mechanisms to publicly rate the quality of e-learning programs, and this has allowed things that are not or that do not meet the minimum requirements to be presented as virtual training. For this reason, initiatives aimed at spreading the quality of training experiences are very important. Disinformation has delayed the dissemination and application of virtual content that is available and that in many cases is free.
Today some countries like the United States are more advanced in this field, but the growth rates of this type of training in developing economies are increasing. This allows us to affirm that in a few years the virtual training about which even some people today have doubts, will be the educational standard of excellence throughout the planet.
