September 1st, 2008 by Learning Systems
While it is argued that spending considerable time on the internet, even when deliberately using it as a learning system, may turn people antisocial and hermitlike, the counterargument posits that interacting with others online actually increases people’s capacity for social interaction. As well, that it also tends to grant them a democratically oriented outlook on life, as online learning community and forum debates are often settled this way. This learning system is said to encourage creativity and a healthy reluctance to take all assertions as truths.
While it probably won’t be able to efficiently replace the value of in-person learning for some time, the internet learning system certainly offers an increasing amount of advantages, to the point of oft surpassing the usefulness of the traditional system.
September 1st, 2008 by Learning Systems
One of the minuses of the traditional academic (and others) learning system is the passivity of the students—educators educate actively, while learners learn passively, solely by receiving and processing information. Interactivity is foreign to, dare I say, most learners in the world. As children, we often learn with toys, but as we become older and attend classes, we become receptacles of information, often having to memorize data without ever being asked to analyze it.
Via the interactive learning system known as the internet, students can search for, check, compare, and share information. Many interactive web sites, with quizzes, videos, live chat, and the like accustom students to abandon the passive role and adopt an opinionated, analytic, active role, which consequently engages the learner further in the learning system, and results in better learning overall.
September 1st, 2008 by Learning Systems
Learners can enhance any learning system by complementing it with another: the internet. The internet’s contents are so varied and wide, that the understanding of any concept learned can be expanded and enhanced by appealing to online sources.
This learning system is peculiar as well in its ability to connect learners from anywhere in the world, allowing them to exchange ideas and knowledge, with tools available in an astonishing amount of languages, even while sitting alone in their homes. Learners can even reach their teachers on the internet, without having to wait until they meet again in person.
It is an interactive learning system that connects education with learners in seconds, and lets learners communicate with each other and with educators in real-time, speeding up the process of learning and the production of information.
September 1st, 2008 by Learning Systems
Free: Most of the information online is free. Sometimes payment is required (for some journals, magazines, etc.). Regardless, the internet makes for a relatively free learning system.
Available 24/7: There is no opening or closing time. Use the web according to your schedule and personal bouts of inspiration.
Ubiquitous: Utilize this learning system anywhere in the world with an internet connection (which is, alas, not always free). But if you can access the internet for free from a McDonald’s in a third-world country, you can be sure the burgeoning amounts of free internet spots worldwide will eventually reach even Antarctica.
All-encompassing: There are still documents unavailable online, e.g. a few ancient religious texts, but just you wait. The internet is becoming the most comprehensive learning system in history.
