Education

Online education is now very popular. Many students now use the internet to revise, research, and receive information from; it is now more widely used than textbooks. Due to the growing popularity of online education many websites have been set up such as: MyMaths and BBC Bitesize being the most well known. Alongside these websites forums and student rooms are being set up. Some teachers have also adopted the use of online services to use as a teaching aid. Online education helps people who lead busy lifestyles and don’t have the time to go through pages and pages of books to find the information; they need it at the click of a mouse.

Revision:

Revising online is easy, and with the huge number of resources you have, informative too. BBC Bitesize leads the way in online education but smaller sites such as MyMaths as catching up. Most exam boards also offer sites where students can go and pick up past exam papers.

Buying books and other resources:

Different websites now sell school books, textbook and revision guides which students can purchase online. These are helpful for revising throughout the year as well as before exams. Using different sources of information give the student a wider range of information to use.

BBC Bitesize:

BBC Bitesize is the most popular and most widely used online revision site. Its revisions tools range from KS1 all the way to higher A-Levels; this is a good thing because it has a wide audience. It also has different sites for different regions of the UK who may have different exam boards.

Advantages:

There are many advantages of BBC Bitesize. One advantage of Bitesize is the wide range of subjects it offers and that no matter what course you are studying Bitesize always has resources for you to use. A second advantage of Bitesize is that it is all online, in one place; this means that there is no need for any paper or spending money on textbooks. A final advantage of Bitesize is how interactive it is. I find interactive learning a lot easier that just reading out of a book etc.

Disadvantages:

In my experience I have found no disadvantages with the site.

Personal Experience:

From my personal experience I have found BBC Bitesize to be an extremely useful asset. I used it mostly for my GCSE’s but also for my A-Levels. I found it to be an easy to use, fun and interactive way of revising. I didn’t find myself getting board. Overall a great revision site.

VLE’s – Virtual Learning Environment

VLE’s are a great tool used by multiple schools today. More and more schools are starting to use state of the art systems such as frog. VLE’s such as frog allow you to access work from virtually anywhere with an internet connection. Many teachers now set work via VLE’s students are then able to log on using a username and password and then you are able to view resources from your school files.

Advantages:

One advantage of VLE’s such as Frog is that teachers can set work for students that are ill or away or if the teacher is ill themselves this means students can easily catch up on work they may have missed.  Another advantage of sites such as Frog is that all of your files are in one place and can be easily accessed and, much like BBC Bitesize, there is no paper involved. A final advantage of VLE’s is the huge amount of resources that are available to students.

Disadvantages:

One possible disadvantage there could be with Virtual Learning Environment’s is that they can be very expensive to set up. Another disadvantage that there may be with VLE’s is that younger students may find it complicated and difficult to use.

Personal Experience:

In my experience our schools VLE has been good for when I forget to transfer stuff and email it home. Also in the winter if we have a lot of snow and our school is closed, all of my teachers can set school work via the VLE and we could hand it in via it as well. It worked great and the teachers approved of it!

MyMaths

MyMaths is an online-based maths revision site. You have interactive tasks for different topics on there and they show you how to do a certain thing; so essentially it’s just like a teacher! Your maths teacher can also set online homework though it; you complete it and it the mark will be submitted to your teacher. Lots of schools now use this just because of the use of ease of it.

Advantages:

MyMaths has a number of great advantages. One advantage of MyMaths is that you can go over and revise work you would have covered in the lesson that day, but in a different way. MyMaths caters to all different learning styles. A third advantage of MyMaths is that if you do badly in homework you can go it again and improve

Disadvantages

One disadvantage of MyMaths is that the only thing that gets set to your teacher is your overall mark; this means they can’t see any of your working or where you can improve.

In my personal experience MyMaths was a huge help during my GCSE exams, if I was unsure on a certain topic I could log onto MyMaths and learn it. I liked the revision side of MyMaths more than the online homework because it doesn’t tell you were you go wrong, just what your mark is; so it is hard to improve on it

Online tutoring

Online tutoring has taken off in the last couple of months with the use of programs such as Skype. Online tutoring can be much easier because mainly everyone has a computer, and you may not always be able to find a good tutor for that subject in your area. A 1-1 tutor will help you immensely because all of their focus and attention is centred on you and it can help improve your grades dramatically.

Advantages:

One advantage that an Online Tutor has over a regular one is that they don’t always have to live near you, they could live anywhere! Another advantage of an online tutor is that they are usually cheaper due to the lack of travel they have to make.

Disadvantages:

One disadvantage of online tutor is that your Internet might not be very reliable and if you don’t have an internet connection then you can’t connect with your tutors. Another disadvantage of Online Tutoring is that it might be too time consuming writing out equations on the computer for subjects such as Maths and Chemistry.

I have had no experience with online tutoring although I have a friend who has one and he says it’s really helpful and just as good as a in person tutor.