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Do you plan to study something on the Internet? Prepare for surprises – both pleasant and unpleasant. Find out the pros and cons of online learning in advance. Weigh all the factors and make the right decision.
Online education attracts an army of supporters, particularly due to the opportunity to save time and money. At times, however, there are more disappointing virtual courses than programs in the traditional format. It is important to choose them competently, taking into account not only the price. Let’s talk about the obvious drawbacks.
1. Insufficient Level of Professionalism
In our time, the educational online activity does not pass licensing and certification (except for a few respected organizations and programs). There are no industry standards and a clear legal framework. What does it mean? The fact that anyone who has the will and the opportunity can become the speaker of the online training program, for example, a psychologist or a coach with an engineering background, a healer without a diploma, yesterday’s problem student who managed to grab a big marketing jackpot and frankly brags about it.
Recall the mass of the online events of such a type (“Women’s Happiness” or “Traffic Generation”, etc.) The availability of the format often leads to the fact that the person declared as an expert is confused in terms or communicates with the audience on the principle “I’m a boss. You’re a fool.”
Sometimes, the situation is even more interesting: a specialist on earnings on the background of a carpet bought half a century ago; a webinar professional in a room with a poor sound; a time management specialist who starts the lesson with a half-hour delay; a cooking fairy who teaches you to knead the dough not being shy of mud and disorder in the kitchen.
2. Low Quality Material
Many “experts” consider the attraction of the audience (traffic, landings, mailings) as the most important matter, but concentrate all attention on advertising and promotion issues. As a result, there is no time or energy for the compilation of a high-quality content.
Unfortunately, in many online programs, there is a lot of repetitive information. And they seem to a monologue like: “I did it so cool…” This style of presentation is more suitable for interviews or public speaking, but not for the educational course. For this reason, many listeners often get disappointed in the first minutes and quickly refuse to participate in training.
3. Low Technical Level
Bad communication quality, extraneous sounds, lagging image, lost sound, poor illumination of the room, falling out of the webinar room are rather a rule than an exception. It is especially difficult to conduct lectures if the expert is located somewhere in Thailand or Cyprus, for example, and communicates via Skype where the “fisheye” of the laptop deforms his face. At the same time, the speed of the Internet in the resort is clearly low, and most of the time is devoted to clarification in the style: “Do you see and hear me? Type the plus sign!”
4. Aggressive Advertising
The big sin of Internet education (especially cheap or free) is its openly advertising character. Within an hour or two, students listen about the gold mountains – it is only necessary to order a cycle of 10 lessons, a coaching or a strategic consultation with the guru. The main thing is to pay ahead and only now (deadline). All this irritates the audience, causes skepticism.
5. Lack of Interaction
During classical offline lessons, the audience has a very strong influence on the process (group dynamics), and the teacher adjusts himself to the level, the nature of the needs of each group. Real communication gives instant and targeted feedback.
Online learning, as a rule, does not involve active communication with an expert or (it’s also important!) with other participants in the training. Here, more attention is paid to finding the most targeted, “warm” audience, compiling the resume of the client, preliminary surveys and other marketing moves.
You can write your question in the chat room, leave comments, but the statement can be frankly ignored, especially if it contains criticism. The authors of the most “uncomfortable” comments usually get a ban.
6. Absence of Documents on Education
We are talking about all sorts of diplomas and certificates. Most online programs, unfortunately, do not give students any documents confirming the passage of training or send beautiful colored papers that have no legal value and are suitable only for frames on the walls. Exceptions are the online programs conducted by certified universities, training centers, business schools.
If a person learns only “for himself”, the absence of a document is not a problem. But if he counts on mastering a new profession, career growth, it is better to think about such things in advance. It especially concerns specialties, which have an obvious overproduction (web-designers, managers of social networks, beauty experts, etc.)
7. Distorted or Unfulfilled Promises
At online events and in newsletters, on social networks, speakers often give a lot of different promises: to send presentations and checklists, links to research, collections of articles, tables for calculations and much more. Unfortunately, people often feel frustrated after subsequent contacts with the authors. They get advertising of the next services and goods, very superficial and incomplete information (it is necessary to pay for the full data) or a frank attempt to sell something: “Do you like it? Would you like to read further? Subscribe to our materials.” This sin is often admitted even by the solid organizations and publications, not to mention the inexperienced info businessmen and healers.
8. Evaluation of the Results Achieved
The lack of control relaxes many people. That how an online student has learned the training material is checked rarely and superficially (or for an additional payment), at specified “control points”. Or the expert simply collects feedback for self-promotion, publishes the most successful and laudatory estimates. Therefore, self-discipline is very important in the learning process. Not everyone has such a quality.
However, it cannot be said that the Internet is not useful for education. Detailed online encyclopedia, professional essay writing service – these and many other tools can greatly simplify the student’s life. The main task of young people is to learn how to use them in a right way.
