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B
Before You Read
Read the title from the article below. What do you think the text is going to be about?
How,
in your opinion, can virtual reality phenomenon be connected with educational
process?
C
Read the Article
Miracles of the World Wide Web in Education
Education these days has been the top priority for any family or
individual person, and no doubt the internet comes first in promoting
and maintaining the education standards among the latest
technologies. A clear majority of
people in the emerging and
developing countries see the internet as a positive influence on
education. They believe that the net is not only an access to websites,
these days there is knowledge and communication on every aspect of
the educational world. The resources provided on various web pages
are indeed very informative and useful for professionals and students
related to every field of work. The only pre-requisite is the research
over the internet for a specific educational topic, and then this information just needs to be filtered
to gain the basic knowledge of what you are looking for.
Arguably, it is believed that visual data has a higher impact on learning and memorizing than a
plain text. Therefore, images,
graphics, animation, pictures, slides, documentaries, etc., have a
greater appeal than a plain textbook because they can stimulate more than one sense at a time, and
in doing so, may be more attention-getting and attention-holding.
In educational settings, using
multimedia products and online services provides an opportunity for learners to gain knowledge
about a particular subject in depth.
Another positive effect of the internet in education is the onset of distance education or online
education (internet-based training (IBT) or web-based training (WBT)). With this facility, you can
take up short-term courses with the material available online, attend virtual classes, learn, and
appear for exams. Today, both able students as well as less-able ones can be benefited to the sea of
knowledge through the internet.
The most amazing thing about studying in the net is that the international
education is no more a
chance for only the wealthy and high profile family students. Now via internet no matter if one can
afford to study in top most universities, people can easily benefit from the international quality
education and gain a respectable university degree sitting at home through the online educational
courses provided by the world universities. Relatively low-cost access has become one of the major
benefits of internet to people and students all over the world.
Online courses provide an opportunity for people of all age groups to take up education of their
choice, according to their liking and wish. Be it a student, a housewife, or a professional, they can
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just start up their computers, connect to the internet, and take virtual classes. Therefore, people can
now gain knowledge according to their need and time available. They are free to balance their time
according to their own needs, as there is no fixed moment to attend the lectures. Moreover, you are,
now, never too old or too busy to learn something new.
Although such programs as e-learning,
mooc
and
opencourseware
broaden
access to traditional
training, there are a number of concerns regarding the implementation of open education systems,
specifically for use in developing countries. These include: a potential lack of administrative
oversight and quality assurance systems for educators / materials in some programs; infrastructure
limitations in developing countries; a lack of equal access to technologies required for students’ full
participation in online education initiatives; and questions regarding the use of copyrighted
materials.
Nowadays education is open to new approaches and challenges of the world progress. Close
attention is paid to the technological innovations of young teams that start their projects on
international markets. One of the latest breakthroughs within the use of the internet is ‘The Cave’,
an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to three, four, five or six of
the walls of a room-sized cube. This technology was firstly developed at
University of Illinois at
Chicago. This foam lined area, roughly egg-shaped filled with video monitors, speakers and
microphones, reproduces excellent sound and has become the third major physical form of
immersive Virtual Reality (after Goggles ‘n’ gloves and vehicle simulators). Today, on college
campuses
all over the world, musicians use Caves to create intercontinental jam sessions. In the
future, you may take a class from inside a Cave, or take in a concert or play.
If you’re researching something for school, try using the internet to access your library card
catalogue. When you have made your list of books, place them on reserve and the librarians will
collect them up and hold them for you to pick up. If you find out about books, journal articles, and
other resources which are not
available in your libraries, explore ‘Inter-Library Loan’ – you can
check books out of libraries that are not anywhere near you. That’s a real boon for students.
With these points, the importance of internet in education cannot be denied, and hence, every
student should be given access to the internet for deeper understanding of a subject. However, loads
of information can be termed as both, advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as students can
also have an access to unwanted or unethical information and sites. Therefore,
it is only wise for
parents to make children understand what is good and what is not for them, or keep watch on their
surfing. Lastly, although the Internet cannot replace books or classroom education because the
aesthetic quality of sheets of a downloaded text leaves much to be desired, it is still one of the best
substitute for those who wish to gain deeper knowledge on literally every subject under the sun.
(See more at:
https://www.omicsonline.org
;
https://www.edge.org/responses/how-is-the-internet-
changing-the-way-you-think
;
http://allindiaeducationblog.blogspot.in/2015/06/advantages-of-
internet-in-education.html
)
