Being an online teacher and an educational instructor on high school-level, I often get confronted with the conception that online teaching is only an effective learning method for adults. It is difficult though to answer the question of how much truth lies within this opinion, since teaching methods in this field continuously proceed in order to meet the different requirements of all age groups.
At its beginning e-learning primarily focused on conducting video lessons. Anyone is able to follow these lessons. However, in order to acquire the desired knowledge out of these lessons, patience, self-discipline and maturity is necessary; mostly abilities of adults. That is the reason, the opinion that online-teaching is primarily suitable for adults, was so widely spread.
Nowadays, technology develops rapidly and online-teaching turns education into a live process where the role of the teacher is to recognize the abilities and preferences of their students in order to find the most adequate and efficient way to teach them. Up to date e-learning tools turn education into fun. Games, quizzes, videos and many more tools have been modified so they can convey knowledge while they entertain at the same time.
Just consider how much easier children learn the multiplication of the number 5 in comparison with other numbers, because of the integration of the well-known game “Hide and seek”, where the seeker was supposed to count, using only the multiples of the number 5.
Playing is the best way to pass knowledge to a child, the biggest joy that is experienced during teaching and the best approach towards the learning process. Computers and the internet are great arms towards this direction, since more and more applications give us the possibility and help us to achieve our goal to offer better services in the field of Education.
I believe that within the next years, knowledge will be mainly transferred through computers. Considering this possibility become reality, and given the need for lifelong learning, why shouldn’t we set the ground for children in early years so they can exploit the knowledge in the best way that is offered by these new technologies, easier and without restraints?
Author: Pavlos Ksinas
