What You Need To Know All About Mobile Learning

Ever completed a course session during your morning walk? Just plug in those ear-phones and match your pace with that of the lesson. Let us tell you why this is such a great idea. Exercise releases endorphins that stimulate “feel good” emotions and triggers creativity in the brain. What does peaks in creativity during (and post) exercise have anything to do with effective mobile learning? Just one: advance constructive interchange.

You have this neat stack of knowledge in the deeper recesses of your mind. Lines of text or notes of audio entice those neat stacks to reshuffle and make room for more. How? You may wonder. Simple. Constructivism is at its best during your exercise. But how would you carry your learning while you walk/run/jog, in your latest smartphone or the coveted hand-held you purchased at a Black Friday? Is it really possible? A chunk of your time spared for your daily grind at the running belt multi-tasked with your daily mind exercise?

M-Learning and mobile learning management is all about learning on the run (running on the learning curve?) in this and many other mundane situations that make life so beautiful. So what has mobile learning solutions actually achieved for the digitally advanced consumer? Hiked up the time slot for learning activities from the usual post-dinner to during-my-early-in-the-day-activity. This preferred activity could be catching the train to work (or back), browsing the internet on the phone during the lunch break, waiting for the dentist after work or standing at a long line at the DMV. Now that’s an achievement.

How Online Study Materials Preparing for the Board Exams

Online learning or e-learning can contribute in a timely bound manner for school students mainly for those who are preparing for the board exams, whether it is CBSE, ICSE or even state. E-learning has many advantages over regular classroom learning.  At present, most of the people use the term’ google it’ for  all their queries expecting a perfect solution for their doubt. So are students, they too need to get access to the safe internet for knowing more on topics that they learn from textbooks. But the result is that they end up in a complicated manner with a wide variety of content  from which picking the right material is a difficult task and time consuming.Here we are about to give you some advantages of online learning and let you know how a student can get benefitted with online resources for his/her study purposes.

Textbooks VS Online study materials

Textbooks are static entities that their contents once printed cannot be changed, but in the case of online study materials, the students can get the latest or the updated study materials of their school lessons from the internet. Textbooks can only show the viewpoint of the author, but the student is enabled to explore the topic beyond the textbooks surfing the internet. If the student feels that the author tends to be biased on a particular topic, the student can easily identify the right facts from the internet probably with more explanations and clarifications.

Vast collection of study materials

The internet contains a huge amount of study materials including NCERT Solutions, CBSE guide, CBSE Question Papers, Model question Paper, question bank and much more. Websites like schoolessons.com are providing  ample study materials including animated lessons, MCQ's, fill in the blanks, practice tests and other features that can be easily learned by students through 24x7 and can be accessed any time of the day. Each day millions of contents are added to the internet that the volume of study materials are increasing daily. Online study materials can be in the form of notes, videos, animations, graphics etc. Videos can be accessed from youtube where children can find video lessons or video lectures related to their school lessons.

Best Video Lectures for JEE Main & Advanced

M-Learning Video lectures for JEE Main & Advanced have become a preferred medium for preparation of the JEE (Main + Advanced) Exam. This all new way of seeking JEE online coaching has gained popularity owing to the several benefits attached to it. Here is why this has gradually emerged as the best way to prepare for this JEE (Main + Advanced) Exam:

1. Study at Your Own Speed.
2. Choose Your Place of Study.
3. Choose Your Time of Study.
4. No Need to Relocate.
5. Economical Option.

M-Learning Video Lectures for IIT JEE

Video lectures for IIT JEE have become a preferred medium for preparation of the Joint Entrance Examination. This all new way of seeking JEE coaching has gained popularity owing to the several benefits attached to it. Here is why this has gradually emerged as the best way to prepare for this engineering entrance exam:

Study at Your Own Pace

Unlike the conventional class room coaching, video lectures for IIT JEE allow you to study at your own pace. You do not require matching up to the speed of your teacher or your fellow students and move on to the next topic even if you haven’t really understood the previous one when you study through video lectures for IIT JEE. You can watch these lectures as many times as you wish and move on to the next only when you are thorough with the current one.

5 Advantages Of Online Learning: Education Without Leaving Home

    Although online education has its limitations, there are several advantages of online learning that explain why e-Learning may be the greatest revolution in today’s education. Here are 5 of them.

 

Traditional Education And Advantages Of Online Learning

    There are several problems with the traditional system of education. First of all, you need to pay thousands of dollars per term to attend a prestigious school. With all those budget cuts, busy classrooms, and course shortages, you won’t always get the chance to study exactly what you want.

    It’s no wonder why millions of students from all around the world opt for online degree programs or take at least one college course through an online platform. Online learning has to be the greatest revolution in contemporary education. It made a huge change in the system and opened great opportunities for everyone who wants to learn something.

    Nevertheless, online education is still related to stereotypes. People often think that online students are not smart enough for a traditional college or university, they are lazy, and they don’t get “real” degrees. These claims discourage many people from taking online courses, so they get stuck in the traditional educational system that consumes a huge deal of money, nerves, and years of their lives.

    Allow us to explain why online learning is more awesome than you think. We have 5 advantages of online learning that will make you reconsider your attitude towards this type of education.

Advantages Of Online Learning

1. You can learn whatever you want!

    You can pick the program of your dreams in traditional education, too, but that would involve traveling away from home, living in a completely unknown city, and struggling in an extremely competitive learning environment. With online education, you can take any program or course present in traditional four-year universities.

    For example, let’s say you’re mostly interested in neuroscience. All it takes is a Google search for such online course, and you’ll easily find the online programs offered by some of the most prestigious universities from all around the world. You can take such a course even if you have no aspirations to apply that knowledge in your future profession, but you’re simply curious to discover new interests and understand how the human brain works. The great variety of online programs and courses is a huge advantage of this type of education. It doesn’t matter where you live and what you want to study – you can always find a suitable course or even a degree program that you can follow from home.

2. Comfort

    Forget about attending classes for hours, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, and suffering from back pain by the end of the day. You will not be bound to physical class session when you opt for online education. All lectures and needed materials are provided via online platforms, so you’ll easily access them from the comfort of your home. You will not take public transport to get to campus, you won’t have to spend money on gas for your car, you won’t have to get up early to get dressed for class… the list of conveniences goes on and on.

    Comfort is a strong advantage, but it can go both ways. You mustn’t allow yourself to get too comfortable when studying from home, so it would be best to abandon the couch for few hours a day and set up an inspirational studying environment in your home. All you need is a large desk and a nice, comfortable chair.

3. Online courses look great on a resume

    It doesn’t matter where your career stands at this moment; an online program will always look good on your resume. It will show potential employers that you’re committed to learning and you’re eager to obtain more knowledge and new skills. Hiring managers don’t see online degrees as inferior to traditional ones. A degree is a degree. If you obtain an online degree from a prestigious university, you’ll boost your career with the speed of light. You will certainly become a better candidate for a job promotion, and your resume will look much better when you apply for new positions.

4. Self-paced learning

    When you start browsing through interesting online courses and programs, you’ll notice the Self-Paced label on most of them. What does this mean? Self-paced learning means that the students can start completing the targets at any time, and he can arrange a learning schedule that meets his individual needs.

    When you enroll in a traditional college program, you’ll have to forget about work, hobbies, and even family. In such setting, studying has to be a priority. That’s why many single parents and people who work decide to forget all about their dreams to get a higher degree.

    A self-paced system enables them to make progress with rhythm that suits them. This type of system does not require attending live sessions; you can access the materials at any time that works for you. If you have to work or take care of your home and children during the day, you can study at night. That’s an advantage the traditional educational system cannot beat.

5. Lower costs

    The fact that online programs are cheaper when compared to the ones held in a traditional campus setting is enough to convince you to consider them. The average tuition for online courses depends on multiple factors, so it varies from one program to another. If, for example, you want to enroll in the Big Data Specialization program provided by University California, San Diego through Coursera, you’ll pay $399. You also have an option to pay $49 per course. Financial Aid is available for learners who cannot afford this fee, so that’s something you should always keep in mind.

    We saved the best part for last: many online courses are completely free of charge. MIT, for example, offers all course materials online without any charges. Free courses don’t usually come with certificate of completion, but they are still more than useful for anyone who wants to learn from prestigious educators.

Online Education Is Totally Worth The Effort

    Online courses and degree programs are more convenient and cheaper than their counterparts in traditional education. Those are the two main advantages of online learning that lead many students to opt for online platforms when they want to earn a degree or certificate.

The best thing about online learning is that you can learn in a relaxed manner even if you don’t want to get certified. You only need passion for learning and a quick online search that will take you to the right course. From that point on, you will be the master of your own education.

Is online learning the future of education?

    In the past, if you wanted to get a qualification, or even simply learn something new, you would sign up for a course at a bricks-and-mortar institution, pay any relevant fees, and then physically attend class. That was until the online learning revolution started.
    Last year, the e-learning market was worth an enormous $166.5 billion. It’s been estimated that this will grow to $255 billion by 2017. Its growing financial value is matched only by the swelling numbers of students choosing to follow an online course.
    In the latest Global Shapers Survey of 25,000 young people from across the world, 77.84% of respondents reported having taken online courses in the past. So is online learning the future of education?

 What is online education?

    Let’s start first by looking at what exactly it is. Online education takes two major forms. The first: for-credit courses where students enrolled in tertiary education take online classes offered by home or other higher education learning institutions for credit. Some well-known cases include the MIT OpenCourseWare and the Harvard Online learning.
    The second form of online education consists of professional training and certification preparation. Such online learning is usually targeted at professionals or students seeking training or preparing for certification exams. Popular courses include training in foreign languages, accounting and nursing.
In the Global Shapers Survey, close to half (47.79%) of respondents said they would be willing to pursue certification for certain skills, including online certification, once they have started their working careers. This again speaks to the large potential and market for online education.

Overcoming the challenges in online learning

    Regardless of these concerns, online education has made great strides in recent years. For starters, more and more institutions of higher learning have introduced or reinforced their online education platforms, the main considerations being cost reduction for students and recruitment expansion in face of rising competition. As a result, online education has become an increasingly important part of tertiary education, with colleges and universities using world-famous faculty members and professional support teams to promote online courses.
    To tackle the question of teaching quality, a number of providers have turned to user rating and internal evaluation. Star teacher, for instance, has become a popular teacher evaluation mechanism in China and South Korea, two of the largest e-learning markets.
    Overall, such progress seems to have eased the doubt about the quality of teaching, and 40.56% of respondents in the Global Shapers Survey said online education is as strong as traditional learning in a classroom, with another 11.76% saying they didn’t know.

Education for all

    Undoubtedly, with the even wider spread of technology and deepening of the global mandate of education for all, online education’s potential to become complementary – or in some cases alternatives – to traditional education cannot be overlooked.
    Instead of worrying whether or not online education can ever be as good as more traditional formats, perhaps we should instead focus on how we can use it to deliver quality education for people all over the world, particularly the poor and underserved.
    This won’t be an easy task – online education is in dire need of regulation. Outstanding issues include the question of accreditation and quality control. This gets even more complicated when you consider the international dimensions. For years, cross-border credit or degree accreditation has been a major issue for various education systems. The flexibility of online learning will only make that harder.
    The obstacles are real but not insurmountable. And the opportunity to make good on the promise of education for all is too big to miss.

Why Did That Student Fail? A Diagnostic Approach To Teaching

When students struggle in school, it can be for a variety of reasons.

From their grasp of content and literacy skills, to their engagement level, to behavior and organizational issues, to teacher actions, to the proverbial “stuff going on at home,” the possibilities are maddeningly endless. The following 8-step process is a valuable tool for me as a teacher, so I thought I’d share a version of it here in hopes that it might help you. It was useful not only for me to see what strategic responses I had available to me as a teacher, but it was also useful for students to come to know what to expect.

It also was valuable in teacher conferences, and in discussions with district folks during walk-throughs when they wanted to know how I “responded to non-mastery” (beyond reteach the same busted content in the same broken form with the same ineffective strategies that failed the first time.)

As you can see in the image below, this functions as a kind of hierarchy. The first step is the most broad and most powerful, and worked for the largest number of students. The second step is a bit more narrow, and wasn’t necessary nearly as often as step 1, and so on until step 8 which was necessary for very few students. This model worked effectively in grades 8-12, though I have never used it in elementary.

The Goal Of Diagnostic Teaching

It is important to keep in mind the goal of this process–diagnosis. What’s wrong? What’s the hang-up? What’s getting in the way of learning, or of students proving what they in fact actually know?

No matter what process, model, system, or flowchart you use, as long as you have something designed and documented, you can use and refine it accordingly, keeping you from knee-jerk reactions to non-mastery like repeating yourself, talking louder/faster/slower, holding students after class, calling home, issuing poor grades, having them partner with “good students,” giving them the majority of the answer, and so on.

Diagnostic Teaching: An 8 Step Process To Support Struggling Students


1. Student goal-setting & progress monitoring

2. Complete all missing or incomplete assignments

3. Differentiate assessments on non-mastered standards

4. Isolate and prioritize standards for mastery

5. Choose new materials/resources that feature more transparent illustration of standard

6. Daily use of student exit chart

7. Fundamental curricular & unit design

8. Beyond-the-classroom support systems

Conclusion

The big idea behind Diagnostic Teaching is to illuminate and remove barriers to student understanding. When students have problems, you need to be able to systematically identify and fix them. This probably isn’t a huge difference from what you already do. There may be a slight change in practice, however.

This isn’t about good grades, high-level thinking, compliance, or even understanding. Rather, the goal is to establish a pattern of diagnosis–of diagnostic teaching–so that you shift your focus from teaching & reteaching to systematic, guided diagnoses of academic performance barriers.

This is a seemingly minor but important shift from thinking like a delivery driver or manager to thinking like a doctor or scientist. Another benefit? Helping students and parents see the process so they can begin to do the same.