yOuThGenEraTion @ BAC 5

Many universities in Malaysia start to offer this type of learning method as they not only can take in more student either locally or internationally but also have income to maintain their position in this competitve world. This usually will happen in the private universities as they do not need a huge campus to allocate their students. Due to the competition, more and more universities nowadays are providing e-learning in conducting their course.

Ther are several advantage of e-learning which are:

a) Foster the interaction among students and lecturers, normally a lecturer cannot pay attention to everyone of the student in a lecture class as it was too big and due to time constraint. Besides, some students may also shame to post question when they do not understand the lecture.Thus, by using e-learning, lecturer can deal with that student individually and students will also be more comfortable in asking question.

b)Self-paced learning, This mean that students actually can learn at the rate they prefer. In the case where a students is a slow learner, they can absorb the knowledge slowly whereas if this happen in traditional teaching method, the teaching pace would not be change just because you are a slow learner.

c)Reduce costs and time, Students can learn from anywhere without travelling to the universities as they can conducting the lesson from their home. This can save the travelling costs and time especially for the student who do not has enough budjet to further their studies in overseas.

d)Gain diversify knowledge, By using e-learning, we are able to learn different knowledge from different country. Thus, this can inspire the students to came out with creative or innovative ideas which it may be useful when they work for their organizations.

On the other hand, e-learning also has it disadvantage which are:

a) Reduce social and cultural interaction, The impersonality of e-learning will let the students feel they are being isolated because lack of face to face communication. Instruction will not always help the students to solve the problem they face during the studies, but somestimes they also needs realistic assistance from the lecturer which they can feel they are being attach by the lecturer.

b)Low motivation, Student must be highly motivated and responsible in doing their work since this is a self-paced learning. In such case, those student with low motivation will not be able to catch up the lesson and fall behind.

c)Access, since e-learning need an internet access, students sometime will feel frustated when the internet connection is slow or having a problem in accessing to a particular websites. Besides, they may facing a problem to deal with the complex learning application and difficulty in manage the computer files.

d) Practicability, Because the lesson is learn through internet, so it is impossible to conduct practical work such as experiments through internet. Sometimes, students may feel boring and do not have a better understanding of the subject they learn.

Again...everything in this world has two aspect!!Although the conduct of e-learning in universities seem like constituting benefit to the students but in my opinion, it also act as a tool to increase their income in this competitive world where many universities are starting using e-learning in conducting the courses. If any of them fall behind, they may not be able to sustain but being kick off from this realistic world. So, is it e-learning brings more benefit to the students or the universities? Let you be the one who determining it.

Journal about fulltime students' and working adults' perception of e-learning in Malaysia.

Reference:

1. http://cai.au.edu/concept/benefit.html

2. http://www.1stopbiztro.com/_mgxroot/page_10752.html