Learning
style implies to a learner’s characteristics and preferred ways of gathering,
interpreting, organizing and thinking about information. Some learners choose
to learn by means of visual forms of information, like pictures, diagrams, and
schematics; others prefer to learn from verbal forms, such as written and
spoken explanations; some learners tend to focus on facts and data; others are
more comfortable with theories and mathematical models; some students favor
learning enthusiastically and communicatively; others prefer to learn more reflectively
and individually. We have found that exposed to the same material and learning
environment, some students may learn with comfort and succeed while other feel
terrible and despaired. They believe that this may be attributable to the fact
that each individual has his or her preferred way of learning a foreign
language.
Online
applications have boomed over recent years to become a very popular tool of
method of learning. There are a lot of online applications, for example Moodle,
Edublogs, and Edmodo. Teachers can use them for their language teaching and
learning process in the classroom. In Unnes, nowadays some lecturers prefer to
use online application such as Edmodo. While we all understand the benefits of
traditional classrooms, the benefits of the online learning piece are likely to
be more arguable.
Traditional
education (especially at the college level) is inclined to place an emphasis on
delivering material by way of a lecture, while in an online learning model
lectures can be videotaped ahead of time so the student can watch on their own
time. The classroom time is more likely to be for structured exercises that emphasize
the application of the curriculum to solve problems or work through tasks.
Online
applications, like I stated in the previous, they are debatable. Lately, we
find the advantage of them but we often see some facts about the disadvantage
of them for learners.
First,
it is mobile. As eLearning can be done on laptops, tablets and phones – it is a
very mobile method. Learning can be done at home, at a cafe or any other time
that could normally be wasted. Whilst you used to be restrained to the classroom,
the whole world can now be your classroom.
Second,
it is No Travel. As just stated, eLearning can be done wherever you have a
device capable of doing so. Thus, again you can suit it in to your schedule,
but also save money on the costs of travel. You haven’t to pay the costs of
travel as well potentially accommodation. ELearning takes these costs away
completely.
Then,
online applications are more flexible. Learning
process can be done in short chunks of time that can fit around learner’s daily
schedule. Unlike traditional learning that is scheduled and in school, learners
don’t have to give a whole day in the school. Hence, learner will have a set
amount of learning, normally allocated into modules, with a deadline in which
to do them in. This way, if learner likes to do all of the learning in one day
as learner works better this way, they can. However if your schedule doesn’t
allow you an entire day off your everyday tasks – then you can undoubtedly
spend an hour or more here and there at times that suit you.
However,
eLearning contributes some bad effects. First, it doesn’t draw to all learning
styles so some learners will not enjoy the experience – especially tough
activists and pragmatists. It is still a challenge to formulate eLearning
appeal fully to these groups as different people learn better or worse using
different styles. Some may prefer images, some prefer just reading words and
some prefer to talk about or actually do a task in order to learn.
Next, it is lack of control. Learners who have
low motivation are liable to fall behind when using eLearning as there are no
set times to be doing it and they are responsible for the organization
themselves. A lack of routine or fixed schedule can mean eLearning becomes
complicated with various deadlines often given to different people at different
stages of their learning.
Something
has positive effects and negative effects collectively, using online
applications in order to be eLearning also have them. We cannot compare
eLearning is better or worse than the others. As in Skyfall, James Bond and Q
stated “Age is not guarantee of efficiency” and “And youth is not guarantee of
innovation”.
