E-Learning in the classroom

History about E – Learning

In the early 1960s, Stanford University psychology professors Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson experimented with using computers to teach math and reading to young children in elementary schools in East Palo Alto, California. Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth is descended from those early experiments. In 1963, Bernard Luskin installed the first computer in a community college for instruction, working with Stanford and others, developed computer assisted instruction. Luskin completed his landmark UCLA dissertation working with the Rand Corporation in analyzing obstacles to computer assisted instruction in 1970.

History about E – Learning

As early as 1993, William D. Graziadei described an online computer-delivered lecture, tutorial and assessment project using electronic mail. By 1994, the first online high school had been founded.

Today many technologies can be, and are, used in e-learning, from blogs to collaborative software, ePortfolios, and virtual classrooms. Most eLearning situations use combinations of these techniques.

What is E-Learning?

E-learning has become a new paradigm and a new philosophy in library services as well as educational sector with a mission to serve as a development platform for present-day society based on knowledge. What then is e-learning? According to Olaniyi (2006), e-learning is all about learning that occurs at the computer. In our contemporary world, the learning through the aid of a computer simply means online knowledge acquisition through the internet or offline through CD-ROM etc. In other words, it is the use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver, and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere. Horton (2005) defined e-learning as the use of internet and digital technologies to create experiences that educate our fellow human beings. E learning has the potential to revolutionise the way we teach and how we learn (DfES, 2003).

What is E-Learning?

Pedagogical elements

Pedagogical elements are an attempt to define structures or units of educational material. For example, this could be a lesson, an assignment, a multiple choice question, a quiz, a discussion group or a case study. These units should be format independent, so although it may be in any of the following methods, pedagogical structures would not include a textbook, a web page, a video conference or Podcast.

When beginning to create E-Learning content, the pedagogical approaches need to be evaluated. Simple pedagogical approaches make it easy to create content, but lack of flexibility, richness and downstream functionality come in the way. On the other hand, complex pedagogical approaches can be difficult to set up and slow to develop, though they have the potential to provide more engaging learning experiences for students. Somewhere between these extremes is an ideal pedagogy that allows a particular educator to effectively create educational materials while simultaneously providing the most engaging educational experiences for students.