Internet Education

“It’s not enough to know something;

 it’s more important to know why and how”. 

(C. Rodgers, G. Freiburg Freedom Learn) 

The Internet swiftly entered the life of humankind in the 20th century. It took us less than ten years to face the fact of its spreading all over the world, including the developing countries. It has become not only the hugest information resource in the world but – what is even more important – the most rapid means of communication. People from different countries have got an opportunity to communicate with each other in quite a short time. In comparison with a snail-mail or even airmail, e-mail gets over distance and time, frontiers of the states with lightning speed. Thus, people get closer to each other. They have got a chance to know each other better, to become aware of what is common among nations and can unite them and what is different, what peculiarities of culture and religion should be taken into account to achieve mutual understanding. They gradually come to realize the fact that we all are inhabitants of one planet – the Earth – and have to live together depending on each other, helping each other. But, the Internet is only one of the means to understand this and does not guarantee the comprehension of the people only by the technological and information opportunities that it provides. Everything depends on the people themselves, their mentality, their will, and intellect. On the other hand, people in different countries, not only in the cultural and scientific centers, are able to get an education in famous universities. Disabled children, invalids can learn at schools, colleges, and universities by distance.

There are many benefits of the internet in the field of education. Some of these are:

1. Cost-Effective and Affordable Education

One of the largest barriers to education is high cost. The Internet improves the quality of education, which is one of the pillars of sustainable development. It provides education through Videos and web tutorials which is affordable to everyone and cost-effective.

2. Student – Teacher and Peer Interaction

One can be in constant touch with their teachers or with other fellow classmates with the help of the internet. Parents can interact as well as communicate with teachers and school authorities about their kid’s performance in the school. Interaction with the like-minded people on forums can help students to explore new ideas and enrich their knowledge.

3. Effective Teaching and Learning Tool

The Internet has become a major tool for effective teaching as well as a learning tool. Teachers can use it as a teaching tool in order to gain students’ achievement. The learning process becomes interesting and diverse with its use. Teachers can teach with the use of animation, powerpoint slides, and images to capture the students’ attention.

4. Easy access to Quality Education

Teachers can make use of the internet by proving the students with extra study material and resources such as interactive lessons, educational quiz as well as tutorials. Teachers can record their lectures and provide it to the students for revisions which is better than reading from notes.

5. Interaction with Digital Media

Regular use of digital media is one of the most basic parts of our lives. Digital bulletin boards save paper, allow displaying of videos and audios to attract the attention of students. Nowadays, there are many paid sites that provide educational resources that are rich in quality and easily understandable to masses.

6. Keeping you updated with Latest Information

Information is the biggest advantage which the internet is offering. There is a huge amount of information available for every subject. It keeps us up to date with the latest information regarding the subjects.

7. Learning with Multimedia

It helps the students with the learning process as it helps to simplify the knowledge. Also, it helps to visualize what is being taught by the teachers in school. If you want to prepare for final exams, you can access Video Tutorials and other resources online through the Internet.

The Internet is a boon to the people, which is used all over the world. Hence, it should be used for good purpose. It has had a great impact on imparting education to the children. If this is used inappropriately 

The Reality of the Internet and Education

These examples—and many more like them—are now seen as proof of the Internet’s growing contribution to what it means to learn and be educated in the twenty-first century. Undoubtedly, developments such as MOOCs flipped classrooms, and self-organized learning could well turn out to be educational game-changers (Oblinger 2012). Yet the history of educational technology over the past one hundred years or so warns us that change is rarely as instantaneous or as totalizing as many people would like to believe. Indeed, the history of modern educational technologies (starting with Thomas Edison’s championing of educational filmstrips in The 1910s) has usually been characterized by sets of complex mutually shaping relationships between education and technology (see Cuban 1986). In other words, new technologies rarely—if ever—have a direct one-way impact or Society, Community, Individuals 18 Neil Selwyn The Internet and Education bbvaopenmind.com predictable effect on education. Rather, established cultures and traditions of education also have a profound reciprocal influence on technologies. As the historian Larry Cuban (1993, 185) observed succinctly of the remarkable resilience of schools to the waves of successive technological developments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, “computer meets classroom—classroom wins.” In asking how the Internet is shaping education in the 2010s, we, therefore, need to also ask the corresponding question of how education is shaping the Internet.

Conclusions

Whether one agrees with any of these latter arguments or not, it is clear that the topic of “the Internet and education” needs to be approached in a circumspect manner. The predominantly optimistic rhetoric of transformation and change that currently surrounds the Internet and education distract from a number of significant conflicts and tensions that need to be better acknowledged and addressed. This is not to say that we should adopt a wholly antagonistic or wholly pessimistic stance. Indeed, many of the issues just outlined should not be assumed automatically to be cause for concern. There are, after all, many people who will be advantaged by more individualized, elitist, competitive, market-driven, omnipresent, and de-emotionalized forms of educational engagement. The Internet clearly works for the millions of people who are learning online at this very moment. Yet while it may well be that the Internet is helping some individuals to engage with education in more convenient, engaging, and useful ways, we would do well to acknowledge that this is unlikely to be the case for all. Any Internet-led changes in education are accompanied by a variety of unintended consequences, second-order effects, and unforeseen implications. Perhaps the most important point to consider is the well-worn tendency of digital technology to reinforce existing patterns of educational engagement—helping already engaged individuals to participate further, but doing little to widen participation or reengage those who are previously disengaged. In particular, any discussion of the educational potential of the Internet needs to remain mindful of the limited usefulness of a technical-fix approach to understanding contemporary education. The Internet should not be seen as a ready solution to apparent inefficiencies of twentieth-century education institutions or practices—it will not lead automatically Society, Community, Individuals Society, Community, Individuals 24 25 Neil Selwyn Neil Selwyn The Internet and Education The Internet and Education bbvaopenmind.com to more engaged or motivated learners, more highly skilled workforces, or rising levels of national intelligence and innovation. Instead, it is likely that many of the problems of contemporary education are primarily social and cultural in nature and therefore require social and cultural responses. As such, while there is plenty of scope for the increased use of the Internet within education, any claims for change and improvement should be seen as contentious and debatable matters, rather than inevitable trends that educators have no choice but to adapt to. To reiterate a key theme that has emerged throughout our discussion, underlying all of the issues raised in this chapter are questions of what sort of future education one believes in. As such, the role of the Internet in improving, transforming, or even disrupting education is a deeply complex and ideologically loaded matter that goes well beyond technical issues of how to personalize the delivery of educational content, or support the production and consumption of online content. The future of education may well involve increased use of the Internet—but will not be determined by it.