Being an Online Learner is a series of articles for Cloisters that will explore what it is to be an adult learner here in the 21st Century, in the Age of the Internet. We’ll look at what online learning is - and isn’t; we’ll find out where online learning has come from and all the benefits of life as an online learner. In this series we’ll also investigate some deft strategies to help you make the most of  an online course.  As the months go by we may stray off the beaten track as we spot something interesting in the undergrowth - but that’s half the fun isn’t it?

-Noel Chidwick

1: What is this Online Learning thing anyway?

I hear, I forget; I see, I understand; I do, I remember.

-Homer

Online learning is learning via the medium of the Internet. An online course is a package of learning offered - and undertaken - through the Internet. Until recently, we did not need to put ‘online’ in front of the word ‘learning’,as most learning took place in a classroom, a tutorial room, a lecture theatre, anywhere that people gathered together to learn. Now people don’t have to meet to study—we can do it quite well over the Internet, thank you.

Here at the New Curiosity Shop we do online learning: all our courses are available to learners over the Internet, and are only available online over the Internet.

What does an online course look like?

An online course is a beast with two heads: content and communication. The content is the subject material in question and communication is the vital interaction that takes place between learner and tutor, and between learners.  The Internet is an amazing and versatile communication tool. Well used, the versatility of the Internet is what makes all the difference between an online course and a series of pretty web pages. We’ll look at how this communication tool can be used in online courses next month.

 In a classroom content would be what the teacher tells you, what she writes on the board, what handouts you are given, what textbooks you are told to read - the stuff of learning. Online, content can be all of these and so much more.

Now that the Internet can do so much, enlightened teachers in schools, colleges and universities are as happy as pigs in an orchard on a windy day. The world-wide web is a publishing tool that would make Gutenberg drool into his printing ink. On the web you can publish: video; pictures; sound; animations; simulations - a whole range of interactive multimedia. The web is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow where all the knowledge of the human race is published: take a look at Wikipedia to see just one website where a community is beavering away to inform the rest of us.

But an online course is more than just links to websites. A well-written course, online or otherwise, is a well-crafted map drawn up to guide the learner through the dark maze of information and misinformation and into the light of understanding. An online course can include any of the digital elements listed above, but a good online course will only include them as necessary: a well-crafted sentence can often be the best way to make a point. A good online course also has a structure that makes life for the learner as straightforward as possible. After all, if you are learning a new subject you don’t want to struggle with a complicated web navigation system. That is why we make it clear to our course writers that a course must be broken down into logical chunks’, and each chunk must be clearly organised.

What do you do in an online course?

A good online course will also have plenty of learning activities, and again the Internet and the power of the computer makes possible what a few years ago would not even have been imagined. Activities could be as simple as answering questions in a quiz up to a full-on online multi-player game: who, for example, could argue that playing The Sims is not a learning activity?  We’ll look at online learning activities in more detail later on in this series.

But an online course shouldn’t be about staring into the glow of a computer all the time. At  The New Curiosity Shop we are conscious that there is more than enough screen-gazing happening in this world, and we stress to our tutors that, where appropriate, an activity should take the learner away from their computer. In ‘Astronomy for Beginners’ the student is sent out to look at the stars straightaway. In ‘Beyond Paradise’  (featured this month) the tutor sends his students off to explore the local graveyard.

Where Next?

Try the Fire Balloon and find out who this man is.

If this has set you wondering, why don’t you join in our free demonstration course, the Fire Balloon? This is a very short sample of a course about the history of the hot-air balloon. It will give you a taste for being an online learner.

Next month: we will look at how the communication tools of the Internet make all the difference to an online learner.

Links to visit

The Fire Balloon (You’ll be asked to register on your way in)

WIKIpedia

The Invention of Printing

The Sims

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