Advantages and disadvantages of online and offline sources. The development of online education

Advantages and disadvantages of online and offline sources. The development of online education.
Offering online learning is a great, revolutionary alternative to traditional training. And corporations have taken notice. In fact, up to 90% of corporations use a form of online learning today, compared to just 4% in 1995. And the e-learning market is predicted to grow another 8% by 2026! Not sure about jumping on the e-learning bandwagon just yet? Before replacing traditional learning with online learning at your organization, carefully weigh its benefits and drawbacks.
Online learning is a form of distance learning that takes place over the internet. It is interchangeable with the term e-learning. Online learning can include online courses, exams, gamified quizzes, and certification training.
The most obvious advantage of online learning comes down to economics. A half-day of classical training is equivalent to a one-hour e-learning course [1]. E-learning increases productivity. In 2019, U.S. training expenses amounted to $83 billion! Of that, $29.6 billion [2] was spent on travel, training facilities, in-house training development, and equipment. Online learning cuts many of these costs, including those associated with hiring an instructor, booking a facility, printing materials, and travel.
Online learning allows people to learn in their own style and at their own speed, which helps them absorb more information. If someone needs more time with a particular topic, they can go through it as slowly and as many times as they need. As you can imagine, this aspect of online learning benefits knowledge retention. WR Hambrecht + Co found that online learning increased the retention rates of the learning material by 25-60%!
The American Society for Training and Development (2011) surveyed 2,500 companies and found that companies that had comprehensive training programs had 218% higher revenue per employee, and 24% higher profit margins [4]. More research confirms that e-learners truly bring what they learn into practice. 87% of 204 surveyed employees indicated that they had put their newly acquired skills and knowledge to practice at work! This translates to tangible benefits, whether it be increased sales, improved processes, or satisfied customers.
In today’s world, information and knowledge change fast! With printed materials, the only way to keep up with these changes is to reprint the material, and if you did that it would be quite costly (not to mention the poor trees 😉). Updating online courses not only allows you to keep up with these changes without breaking the bank, but makes the process easy as pie. The best part is that any change you make to your online content becomes immediately available to your whole learning audience!
5 disadvantages of online learning
41% of a sample of 204 employees indicated that self-motivation was a barrier to participating in online learning. Why? While we can all agree that self-discipline and time management are always at play when it comes to learning, online learning involves less guidance from an instructor than traditional learning. Typically, online learning also removes scheduled meeting times and deadlines. As a result, your employees must put themselves in the driver’s seat when it comes to their ongoing education.
When you imagine a traditional classroom, lively group discussion, and students raising their hands to ask the instructor questions likely comes to mind. Admittedly, these moments do not arise as naturally in online learning. For some individuals, these face-to-face interactions are a must to bring the material to life. Nevertheless, it is possible to bring more social interaction to online learning through competition, scheduled Q&A sessions with an instructor, and discussion channels.
Which would you rather learn via online learning: how to fly a plane, or government guidelines on disposing chemicals? Our choice and we imagine your choice as well, is the latter. It is safe to say that you wouldn’t want to be a passenger on a plane with a pilot who had only ever flown a plane in a flight simulator. Complex topics, operative techniques, and practices that require a physical environment are best conducted in person. Yet, more repetitive topics in a high turnover environment lend themselves naturally to online learning. Younger generations entering the workforce, and technology being adopted broadly, has driven the popularity of e-learning. However, not everyone has integrated technology into their daily routine. 26% of adults were found to be computer illiterate by a 2016 study. Therefore, it is important to assess whether your employees are computer-savvy and whether they have the appropriate setup for online learning. Do your employees have convenient access to electronic devices and the internet? Do they have working speakers if there is video or audio in a course? If accessing online learning becomes a burden, motivation might plummet.