The rise of online education has been meteoric in recent years, spurred on by advances in Internet services, software, and public perceptions toward collaborative learning.
Here are ten trends in online education that are currently materializing in the field that we can expect to continue onward into the near future:
A shift to open source—Learning Management Systems (LMS) have traditionally been paid services.
Being considered more valuable by employers—Online educational degrees have up until now been largely regarded as not as valuable on the job market as traditional degrees.
Hybrid courses are surfacing—Blended classes that feature some online education and some face to face teacher interaction have become popular at some colleges in miami and in other spots in the nation as well.
Enrollment growing exponentially compared to brick-mortar-schools—This trend can be expected to continue as the technological services become easier to distribute.
Shared data, collaborative functionality—What will facilitate the easier distribution will be shared texts and the ability to collaborate on projects remotely.
Shift from books and closed texts to digital content distribution—Textbooks are slowly being phased out in deference to digital content distribution systems that allow people to access texts and learning materials online through variety of mobile devices.
Social learning systems to be cloud-based—These digital content distribution systems will be social and cloud-based.
Podcasting is on the rise—Nearly half of US teens and adults have listened to a podcast and this number will grow.
Better technology is emerging—These days students have a wide variety of tools at their disposal, including text chat, immersive multimedia, virtual classrooms, and digital whiteboards. These tools will be further streamlined by better cloud services.
Social media becoming educational—Social media, which has long been viewed as the opiate of the masses, is more and more being utilized to facilitate social learning tools and Learning Management Systems. The rise of online education is expected to continue and many of these issues will play big roles in how perceptions of e-learning change in society.
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