Electronic learning is very important for a firm especially if it is targeting the market online. Knowledge of the online market is indispensable to any firm that has any intentions of marketing or rather offering its products over the internet. Electronic commerce on the other hand can be defined as the process of making sales and purchases online. Maurer (2004) asserts that a company can make almost all its purchases online, produce its goods and then offer them to the market online. This kind of business operations is very efficient and time saving, not to mention cost effective.
In order to be able to advance in the current global economy, a business organization has to employ techniques that are able to be competitive and is a great threat to other competitors. The incorporation of e-learning gives a clear overview of how this ought to be entailed. Companies normally make the best use of this facility by using its network in delivering education courses to its workforce. This gives an added advantage over the other methods since the delivery of goods and services can be effectively made.
Thus the main objective here is to try and show how electronic learning will not only increase online market but also increase marketing that is not online. It is not exclusively limited to the online market per se because even businesses that don’t trade online need customer feedback and the easiest, fastest and cheap way to assessing the customers is online. This now leads to the assessment of the importance of online learning and why its adoption will be of a very great advantage to any firm.
Electronic learning is used in achieving the goals for training in a quick way (Maurer, 2004). In as much as employees need to be informed, they also need to be present at work for the firm to continue smoothly with its day to day activities. Time therefore has to be created to achieve this extra objective and at the same time not interfere with the firms daily operations. Technology based instruction contributes to the firms efficiency by making the time that employees are physically away from work to attend the learning sessions shorter. Employees often enjoy learning fully at their places of work and on their daily program without any interference whatsoever.
Electronic learning offers the employees the chance to learn during their own free hours. The implication is that they are not tied up to any tight schedule that they have to adhere to for the successful completion of their training. They actually learn at their own chosen convenient time. This is not limited to learning only because assessment is also done online. The learners upload their work for assessment and they also get the results online and in good time. This assessment acts as a good measure of how efficient each and every employee is and the criteria could be based on a number of factors such as the quality of work and the time taken in the whole training and assessment process.
Scott Sandberg a learning officer at the University of Phoenix says that when the management makes the objectives of the training very clear, the employees are able to stay focused on what is important and may even specialize at times. After the course when the trainers or rather the learners in this case are engaged in a series of discussions about what was offered , they are more likely to assimilate what they learned very fast and then use it to improve the performance of the firm. This practice is very crucial because if the employees don’t assimilate whatever they learned, then the firm will have wasted both time and money in the whole training process.
Such staff of well trained is the kind that will be able to hold virtual discussions in the near future hence helping the firm improve on its efficiency.
Electronic learning gives a provision for combining many different styles of learning. Here a style of learning is taken literally to mean the different ways in which learning occurs in different settings. Different methods are derived so as to cater for the different disciplines which are of very varied content. By using technology, trainer and peer interactions appropriately, different forms of learning can be used in a single learning session.
The tutor is able to use more than one method in content and lesson delivery. A perfect example to illustrate this for instance is where the instructor starts the lesson in a classroom setting and then finishes it online or even virtually. This is important particularly while demonstration on how to do certain things.
Electronic learning prepares the learners to be independent thinkers and able to be creative. Although the learners to some extent are assisted by the instructors, they do most of the learning by themselves. This helps them in a number of ways since they are not just seated and taken through a process as in the classroom setting where the instructor is the centre of attention.
This actually makes electronic learning be more of a heuristic learning than instruction learning the products of such a heuristic system are more refined and very innovative. It is such employees that are able to help the firm easily get out of a crisis. Distance learning is very simulating and encourages the students to reason critically because it makes provisions for interactions that occur resourcefully in small cluster settings. Students taking online courses are characteristically drawn into the subject matter of the class more than in the traditional classroom settings because of the discussions that they take part in.
Electronic learning makes it possible for the learners to learn both formally and informally. Formal learning occurs when the learner covers the required set syllabus, understands it and does well in the exams. It doesn’t end with the exams though because the learner is expected to make use of the knowledge acquired during the training to help the firm to pursue its objectives (Stewart, 2008). Informal learning runs concurrently with the formal learning because the learner is able to know certain things that are not contained in the syllabus such as how to make maximum use of the internet especially during the research sessions.
When learners interact during discussions, either virtually or face to face they build on their collaborative skills. When employees collaborate well the firm is able to raise its output due to the proper coordination, otherwise poor coordination among staff is very detrimental to the firms well being. Teaching and communication procedures which allow for interactive online sessions such as exhibitions, acting, online references, chat rooms and counseling often give the students the opportunity to interact on their own and are able to effectively share ideas (Baacke, 1996).
Electronic learning can be done anywhere as long as there is internet. Say for instance of a firm has different branches spread all over the world, one does not have to necessarily bring all the workers together but can just let them learn from their different stations. This minimizes on wastage and interference. The learners will just do their work from their different stations and then upload their work. They can share ideas online and even discuss at times if they so wish.
Such students are able to come up with different ideas from different settings could be due to the different backgrounds. Studies have shown that such students always perform better than their counterparts in classroom settings where the teacher monopolizes all the learning activities. These students tend to be intrinsically motivated to achieve their goals. The fact that motivation to study comes from within themselves is a clear indication of why this students are able to perform better and have very high levels of retention (Aspen, 2004). Resource wise they are not limited because they are able to access almost all the information that they need online.
Electronic learning is less intimidating than trainer led learning because students here enter a tension free learning atmosphere with nothing in particular to make them fear anything (Lee, 2002). This trait is specifically vital when it comes to learning skills such as idea generation, decision making and leadership. It is always advisable for students who don’t do well to repeat and the students studying online are not an exception.
In some situatonns the motivation of employees might arise when the is competitivness with in the firm since will all this the yt are assured of attiniung high profit at the lonbg run
The difference though comes when students in the classroom setting fear repeating and are embarrassed when they repeat. Online students do their studies in private and so no one will know when they repeat a course or they don’t and this often saves them the embarrassment when they actually do repeat. This makes online students repeat and with ease for that matter when they don’t do well and then improve on their performance significantly.
Online students usually have high rates of content retention compared to the classroom learning because it is more personalized. The students are in control of their learning and are able to do exactly what is expected from them. They have a sense of responsibility because they are self motivated to seek for knowledge. From ISO/IEC, (2004) the high levels of simulation provided by technology can be modified to suit the learners’ ability. With technology available all the time students can learn at own speed and revise their work as often as they like to. This improves on their understanding of the course and their overall performance in exams. The students can also customize the learning material to their personal requirements. In so doing they are to be in be in charge of their learning and hence be able to achieve high returns from the education system.
Online products often make it easy for trainers to update their lessons and teaching stuff all the time they need reviewing (Baacke,1996).This enables them to updated notes that are up to date. The content is thus kept fresh and consistent and this enables the students to be fed on the latest and reliable information which is very vital for their development. This availability of updated information coupled with the fact that they can be retrieved on demand has really made the online students be proficient in their studies.
Just to finish on the advantages of online studies is the fact that this kind of education penetrates into places that are very remote. It only requires internet and we are done. This is particularly important when recruiting new staff to serve in a remote area, they will need training and the firm may choose to train them just where they will be working so that they adapt to the local conditions as soon as possible. Online training offers us the solution and that is why it should be embraced by any firm seeking to make an impact during this times. This type of education just like the others has its own shortcomings which are to the minimal therefore giving an added advantage in a businesses organization (Fidel & Elvis, 2005).
Online learning in most case requires relatively less levels of technology and knowledge in the event that the organization needs to venture into it. In this case a firm has to ensure that it chooses wisely because this mode of learning may be completely out of reach to some individuals especially those that don’t have internet in their houses and they can’t install it because of the high costs. A solution to this can be attained when an organization is able to clearly distribute the connections to its employees so that communication can be effectively made.
Conclusion
In conclusion, comparing both the advantages and the disadvantages it is advisable to make use of electronic learning. This is advisable because adopting it is as good as abandoning it is bad. For proper functioning of a good firm and for it to be able to face all the challenges of electronic commerce, all the employees need some form of education which is very fast and efficient.The incorporation of all the effective electronic learning ventures in the business world is of ten of a high and substantial value in that the delivery of the services will be instant fro one place to the other.
New advanced systems in e-learning that entail the prosperity of the business ban be employed so as to have immediate changes in any organizations. On the other hand the alignment of tee learning aspect has to be in accordance to the organization goals in that when the entire are effectively entailed, the achievement will be met with ease.
On the other hand it can be defective that an institution that is connected and has an online facility has a very high chance of advancing unlike one that is not connected therefore in this situation more and more productivity and the delivery of services can be attained with it’s use. It is therefore evident that incorporation of e-learning in any business facility or institution offers a higher advantage to the firm as compared to the firm that is not connected.
This has an outstanding advantage especially with the increased competition that has been witnessed in the twenty first century to meet the global challenges. In general term what can be derived fro the incorporation of the electronic learning in any sector is that the idea is effective and can greatly have a resultant impact that is positive in ensuring that the organization or business is able to advance in all the sectors.
Reference
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