لخّصلي

Distance Learning
Quite simply, digital learning uses new technologies and methods to help students learn in a different way. This new form of education has been rapidly replacing the more traditional form of ‘face-to-face’ lessons.

The incorporation of digital learning can be as simple as the use of tablets or iPads in the classroom instead of the good old fashioned notebooks and paper.

It can also be as involved as using complex software and equipment to facilitate areas of education previously unattainable to particular students.

The scope of how digital products and services can be used for educational purposes is limitless, and it has some incredible benefits for students.

1. Personalised Learning
   Personalised learning symbolised with 4 stacked books

One of the biggest benefits of digital learning is that it allows teachers or course providers to cater their learning plans or curriculum to the individual student.

They can take into account the ability of the student and how they are progressing, then use this to make adjustments to allow for hurdles or quick progress.

No two students are ever exactly the same, so why should the way they learn be.

The traditional face to face method has worked for us as a society for quite some time, but we now know that there are so many contributing factors that will determine the success of a student in their learning process.

In the old system, where you have one teacher for 30 to even 100 students, the pace of the class is always set by the students in the middle. If you are advanced, you have to wait for the others to catch up; if you’re struggling, sometimes you can get left behind because there’s just not enough time to catch you up.

With digital learning, the teacher is able to format their curriculum based on the needs of the individual. It also makes it easier for them to provide confidential individual feedback to each student.

Digital learning has shown that it’s able to provide a more holistic approach to education.

It might be ironic but using technology and machines helps to stop students from just being another cog in a wheel. Instead, it helps them to perform better and reach their full potential.

2. Breadth of Information
   A magnifying glass symbolising a breadth of information

We have never had more information available to us in an instant in the history of our species. The internet is expanding every single day with free information.

At the time of writing this, over 63,000 searches are performed on Google each second. Yes, a large amount of those searches might just be people wanting to settle an argument or some of the other stuff people search the net for, but the main takeaway is that knowledge is free, ready and up to date.

Think about a time when you looked something up on Wikipedia, then clicked on a related link, and half an hour later, you are reading all about the Hindenburg disaster.

This wormhole of knowledge was never possible before the internet. It would have involved hours in a library or with your grandparents’ collection of Encyclopedia Britannica just to get an ounce of that information.

Digital learning taps into this easy access to information and helps students to use it effectively. A good digital learning strategy also teaches students how to be objective when searching the internet for information.

Overall, this approach provides relevant material across a limitless range of topics to help facilitate the best possible outcome in the learning journey.

3. More Engaging Lessons
   A child learning through an app on an iPad

The traditional model of education involves a classroom, books, paper, one teacher and students.

In the old days, there was a blackboard and chalk, now there’s a whiteboard and squeaky pens.

It’s a model we’re all used to, but for those of us who have finished our formal education, we know this wasn’t always the most engaging method.

Digital learning offers a larger range of delivery methods for learning. Imagery, audio and video content can all be integrated seamlessly into a lesson.

Some teachers are even able to find software that enhances the topic they are teaching in the form of games.

All of this helps to make learning more fun, which in turn will raise the retention of the content taught in the lessons.