Sunday 10 February 2013

The 30 Biggest Myths About Online Learning


This blog post is shared from: 
For as long as eLearning has been around, it has been haunted by the voices of those who aim to criticize its authenticity, viability, and quality. But is it true? Do students of traditional institutions boast more success than those who’ve chosen distance learning?
It’s time for some of these myths to die.
(Click on the above link to read details about these myths: 

1. The technology is unreliable

2. Students don’t get group interaction

3. It puts the teaching profession at risk
4. Students are less likely to finish without a teacher overseeing their work
5. The curriculum is less robust
6. There is no way to measure true learning
7. Distance learning is passive

8. It shelters students from the real world

9. You won’t be taken seriously with a distance learning degree

10. Students miss out on extra-curricular activities

11. It’ll be harder to find a job without the college alumni connections

12. eLearning is impersonal

13. Instructors don’t take distance learning seriously

14. eLearning is for people who are too lazy to go the traditional route

15. eLearning is for people who dropped out of school or couldn’t get into college

16. Distance learning only benefits one type of learning style

17. The technology is too expensive

18. eLearning prevents students from learning how to communicate

19. There are too many real-world distractions to make eLearning effective

20. Students need a top of the line computer

21. eLearners don’t have access to resources that traditional students have

22. eLearning is a trend that will never equal traditional education

23. Colleges haven’t come onboard fully with eLearning because it’s inferior

24. It doesn’t provide real life experience

25. Distance learning looks like a cop out

26. eLearning is not that much cheaper than traditional education because of hidden costs

27. eLearning means more screen time, which is not good for the eyes

28. There’s no way to judge the quality of the eLearning program


29. eLearning is boring

30. eLearning will never become the WAY of education

Saturday 9 February 2013

AN Idea of Utopian state - Rama Rajya

(This post was posted as 'comment' on Facebook under posting of Vacha Dave. Please read the comment to contextualize my views in proper context)

 I am skeptical about such Utopian state - where all is well and all are happy.
Why I believe so because to have such 'super-state' - Rama-Rajya - there should be equality, fraternity and liberty (three watch words of French Renaissance). Well, Equality is a myth. There can never be equality among all living-nonliving beings. All attempts for 'equality' has failed, are failing and will fail - read French Revolution and its outcome, George Orwell's Animal Farm and recent in/actions of United Nations. (UN is blind Dhritrashtra. Isn't it?).Fraternity / Brotherhood is another myth. We can have 'brothers-like-friends', but it is difficult to have friends-like-brothers. It is rare (almost impossible) to find brothers as good friends. read - Bible for Cain and Able, Mahabharat for Kauravas and Pandavas, split in Reliance empire after the death of father... Promod Mahajan's murder.Liberty is yet another myth. Rousseau rightly said - Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles. read the political, econolical and social histories of all postcolonial nations - are they really happy after 'liberating' from so called 'raavan-raj of european nations.Thus, all such 'ideologies' which arouse us to crave for oasis are self-contradictory. They are not natural. Yes, i mean it - THEY ARE NOT NATURAL.I am skeptic about what Darwin or Herbert Spencer terms as 'natural'.(this is yet another ideology).Ideologies never work in practical life. If you give freedom of speech to all (even to downtrodden), then Queen of the Rama-Rajya has to live exiled (unhappy) life.
More important is the ideology of 'tolerance'. Are we the Indians not considered as 'soft-people' for being too tolerant? So, if we are tolerant towards 'wickedness' of others, we are considered cowards. And Bhagwat Gita rightly says - its evil to tolerate evil. (Yes, it is very complicated to define 'evil' - one's evil may be other's good).
Well, to conclude this lengthy comment - the answer to why wise-men of the past ages are not able to give - a cook book for super-state is that - to construct super-state is not everyone's cup of tea! And writing book is giving 'theory of living life' - but the yaksha prashna is CAN WE THEORIZE LIFE? Won't it be yet another shackle freedom of human beings?