Beyond brick and mortar, there is a world of open classrooms with unlimited content to learn. Yes, the world is fast turning towards online learning solutions and a variety of online courses, most of them free to be picked up, has taken educationists and learners by storm.
That is the beauty of technology that has fashioned self-directed learning into a complete sector of education; a learner, who has access to the internet and computer (smartphone or laptop), can take up a course of their choice and complete them depending on their own availability of time. So far, the share of the online education world, called MOOCs or massive open online courses, is seven percent worldwide. Over the time, the share is likely to go up given its low cost and high return.
This virtual reality has, however, has a few takers in Pakistan. Two years ago, when someone in a newsroom of a prestigious newspaper asked the journalist colleagues if they had heard about the Khan Academy, the biggest wall-less university of the world (in Bill Gates’ words), most of the journalists were certain that this local-name-institution had some local neighborhood address. Khan Academy has a massive data on science and technology in the form of videos. A few big names in the online education world are: Coursera, Apnacourse, Canvas Network, Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative, Class Central, Stanford, Coursera, MIT and Harvard, EdX courses, FutureLearn, iversity, Janux, Miríada X, MIT Open CourseWare, NovoEd, Open Education Europa, Open HPI, Open Learn, P2P University, Qualt, SyMynd,Udacity courses, University of the People, Unow, WikiEducator and Wikiversity.
This list is just a fraction of the whole online course providers.
Other than course providers, there are websites that connect professionals and their stakeholders. EDMODO is one such wonderful platform where teachers, students, and parents interact with each other and share content, initiate discussions on certain issues and come up with solutions based on their experiences. Take the example of this wonderful social networking websites. The schools have failed to benefit from this site; still, schools prefer working in isolation; the dictation of the principal is the word of Bible to teachers; experience sharing among colleagues is not a popular trend. This stagnation and refusal to integrate with the world in the learning sector have made our schooling outdated, old-fashioned and less creative. Rote learning prevails over critical thinking. The same situation exists in other professions and occupations.
Pakistan’s Virtual University and Allama Iqbal Open University offer distance learning programmes, but these formal universities have failed to popularise the online education and learning solutions. One thing, these universities offer formal degrees, diplomas, certificates and short courses to a select range of candidates. The other thing, these universities charge heavily. These two factors mar the spirit of the online education, which is open and free. International universities offer online courses free and only charge for certificate and assessment.
Teachers of Pakistan may feel threatened by the onslaught of online education solutions. No, they should not. There is an opportunity for them in online courses: they can create courses and post them on a MOOC website. The revenue comes from advertisement and certification. Having access to international learners, they may earn huge revenues than what they pocket by giving tuition to students in a traditional classroom.
Go, pick a course, get enrolled and start it.
What are you waiting for?
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