Online education can be good supplement to regular school education Research Paper

Online education can be good supplement to regular school education - Research Paper Example According to Doan, Kim and Bloomfield (65), this kind of education is facilitated by virtual schools which are web-based programs catering for distance education students’ needs. Virtual schools provide facilitation for online education by providing the necessary learning environment consisting of software and hardware essential for online learning (Means 9). In the list of what virtual schools provide are cyber schools, electronic schools, cyber charts and e-schools. The internet has been observed to contain information overload (Greenblatt and Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly 788). This information is important in providing expansion of knowledge that is attained in regular school education. Thus, online learning serves this purpose of adding to the learning attained through regular school education programs. The combination of both, regular school learning and online learning, characteristically comprise what is referred to as blended learning. This has substantial benefits to an individual’s knowledge enrichment. The delivery as well as receiving of online courses involves relatively user-friendly essential software and hardware. The software system utilized for the packaging the communication tools, grade book, course content among other essential elements of the course is the learning management system (LMS) (Doan, Kim and Bloomfield 63). The second essential software for online learning is the student information system (SIS) which basically manages the students’ data (Ibid 63). Online instructors and students utilize audio and video plug-ins: to share course contents. Basic productivity software such as web browsers, Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Microsoft PowerPoint are important for a variety of activities expected of the instructors and students for information sharing (Ibid 64). Hardware requirements are also