e-Education

Online Education is a key aspect of learning for many people around the world. It is particularly useful for children and teenagers to find information about their current topic or topics related to the subject they are currently studying. Online Education is key to the success of many individuals to enhance their further education. It provides essential help they require to achieve their best and further enhances their chance of a better future. Online Education is a source of information to use if searched at the right place. It can uncover new knowledge or add to existing knowledge. There are many websites out there that allow students to get information and even at times to submit work and get them marked via experts at a specific subject. There are millions of websites out there to help with an individual’s educational needs.

 

One of the most widely used website is BBC Bitesize, Sam Learning & MyMaths. These are some of the widely used websites by kids who are stepping into education. A child would have used one of theses websites throughout their educational life. These websites provide information and help to a student who might have not got something at school or does not understand a topic. Teachers also tend to refer these websites to students while at the same time use some them during their lesson. There are also activities that students can complete to aid their learning from school. BBC Biteseize is a good example as you can do questions and get them checked towards the end where you can get your result and get answers that you got wrong and there will be right answers next to it to aid your revision of the topic. MyMaths have automated questions that for each topic to ensure that an individual can do the question rather than copy the answers of someone else. Sam Learning is a competitive website where students can compete with other students in their school by doing activities which you get points for, which will enhance you to move up the virtual website leader board of your school. It is developed to engage students in a competitive level to further enhance their learning. All of these websites above engage students to review their learning while at the same time aid them by providing information. I have used MyMaths and BBC Bitesize regularly to aid my learning since joining secondary school. It has online lessons aimed to help students with their work that may have been difficult or challenging to do. I used Sam Learning to prepare for my GCSE Exams. It help me to enhance my learning further by having different activities while at the same time a target to aim for in this case the virtual school leader board. Overall all the websites still allow me to enhance my learning by providing aid and help for challenging and tough times.

 

Here are links of the above websites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/
http://www.mymaths.co.uk/
https://www.samlearning.com/
 

Another really famous website that can be used not just by students is Wikipedia. Wikipedia has thousands of articles aimed to help education. It is greatly used for research purposes and provides great value to an individual almost 90% of the time. However the website is not always reliable and trustworthy as almost anyone in the world can write an article on anything they want without thinking about what they are writing. Apart from these it is very useful for planning and coursework purposes. I use wikipedia to research about certain events in the past, about authors, books and almost everything that I don’t know. It helps to find the information that might help me with my coursework or education.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia website:
http://www.wikipedia.org/

 

YouTube is often related with videos, but it can at time aid with educational purposes as well. YouTube have educational videos which helps students to understand a certain aspect of the topic they are doing. For instance there might a video on how the human body perform its day to day function, as it is not in a book it is explained using a video which some students find more interesting to learn from rather than just copying words and words from the book. I have not personally used YouTube for educational purposes as of yet but I intend to in the future to further enhance my knowledge.

 

Exam Board websites are another key website as it offers past papers for students who are preparing to take exams and gives them a taste of what questions they can find. They are also an essential to revision as students can find questions they are losing marks on and revise them questions instead of just revising stuff they know very well. The way it works is that the students can pick a year from the collection of years and papers available view or even do them to enhance their revision and exam practise. It also gives you exam techniques such as on how to answer a 1 mark question compared to a 5 mark question.  I have used many exam board websites to practise my exam techniques and to aid in my revision, throughout my exam periods.

Here are links to the above exam websites:
http://www.edexcel.com/Pages/Home.aspx
http://web.aqa.org.uk/
http://www.ocr.org.uk/
 

Forums are another excellent way of communicating and asking for help. Most of the time only student’s posts on these but there are occasions when a student posts something and an adult comes and posts on your question. It helps students to ask for help or ask for advice on a certain subject or topic you are planning to do. It really helps as you know that they have experienced what you are experiencing and are able to provide guidance what to do next. Most of the time these answers are really helpful but there are times when students just random junk which is not helpful for you at all. Sometimes an elder/ teacher can also help you by replying to your post and therefore this is useful as it further enhances your education. I wouldn’t say it is best to use forums compared to other sites but there are there if a student wants to use it.

 

Although all the above websites are useful and is an advantage to a student, there are also many disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages is Plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking someone else’s work and passing off as it is your own work. Plagiarism is a major issue that exam boards have to tackle with every year. Other people have spent lots of time preparing articles for educational purposes yet some people just copy and paste this as their own work. A lot of these are children who are not bothered to do work themselves but just want to hand in work to chow that they have done it. Wikipedia is one of the major website which students use for plagiarism.

 

Another issue with online education is distraction. Internet is a major distraction while planning to revise. There is lots of stuff to do over the Internet instead of just sitting and learning for hours. From personal experience one of the major distractions is social networking i.e. Facebook, Twitter. Lots of students do their work online while having logged into Facebook or Twitter. This can be a distraction as you might have a conversation with someone while doing your work and this can at time cause silly errors. Another distraction is online games which people can use when they get bored during their revision and then get engaged into instead of doing their work.