Technology 'will help to develop online learning'

The e-learning industry is to see considerable growth at the hands of developing technologies.

Miles Berry, senior lecturer in ICT education at the University of Roehampton and vice chair of Naace, the ICT Association, suggested that modern technology can provide many opportunities for learning and could help to stimulate the development of new teaching techniques.

"There's much that technology can do to provide opportunities for learning for those who've found traditional classrooms quite a challenge," Mr Berry commented.

He mentioned that online platforms can help students who have trouble digesting information given to them in strict classroom settings.

Mr Berry continued that assistive technology and automated translation though interactive activities allow learners to progress at their own pace.

Online resources and communities will also offer students who wish to do extra research beyond the national curriculum the chance to do so via remote access.

Naace works to promote the benefits of e-platforms and is made up of a community of educators, technologists and policymakers whose aim is to implement technology in learning environments.

According to a report from The Education Arcade at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, technology can have a reciprocal relationship with teaching.

Led by Eric Klopfer at the institute, the researchers found that the emergence of new technologies pushes educators to understand them for classroom use and allows them to implement original modes of teaching into schools.

Commenting on the emergence of new virtual systems such as cloud computing, Jonathan Bishop, chair of The Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems at Swansea University, explained that virtualisation platforms are set to have a significant impact on the way online platforms are used for both distance learning and within a classroom setting.

"The holding of e-learning content in the cloud will enable faster deployment and sharing of resources," he commented.