Part I E- LEARNING NOW AND IN THE FUTURE

Since the Internet has been invented, people would like to take more benefits from it. The reason is the Internet can make life easier and more convenient. There are two types of e- education models. They are advance study and life long learning. The first mode is advance study. For most of the people who are full time workers, and who want to do their advance studying or get the better degree, e- learning and e-education are their best choice. They can do their research and learning from the Internet and get the best response. Besides, for some people who live in countryside and want to get better education, the e- education (long distance learning) can offer them the best education. In addition, there is another kind of people need this service, and that is “life long” learning. There are two types of people who need life-long learning. The first type is for those people who really want to learn more things to fulfill their knowledge; e- education can offer them the best “life-long” learning channel. For those people, they might go to community college and get their education. The second type is for some people who do not even care about if they can learn any knowledge from e- learning system or not. They just care if they can get the degree from the e- education system. In this case, they act like buying a degree. And it is obvious that there are several e- education providers that offer this kind of service. How to restrain “buying a degree” is a very important issue for e- education system in the future.

Actually, e- education is a very good channel for people to get better education for their further study. However, because of some people try to buy the degree from this education system, e- degree become incredible. As interviewed Dr. Yien, who is the Vice President of Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) stated that, “We have never hired people who got e- degree online so far.” (Personal communication, Nov’15) For the 21st century, everything will switch into E. Of course, education should go into E, as well. However, if the degree is not credible, I think nobody would like to take it. For some websites, they try to use videoconference to control their students and make sure that their students really participate in the class. They need to meet online by some specific times, and maybe they need to meet their instructor and classmates online outside of the regular meeting time. For this kind of e- education providers, they do hope that they can give something to their students. And also, they hope that they can control their students’ qualities that graduate from their e-college. For example, SVSU has a room (C140) for distance learning. For this specific room, they use two phone lines to dial up, and they offer ISDN speed. Also, this room has several microphones and two video cameras. The purpose that SVSU set this room up is, they hope their students can take class with other college’s students. It is cross campus. This room can offer the same environment to students as a regular classroom (small class room), and each student has a microphone above their head. Of course, there is another one for the instructor. As I mentioned, there are two video cameras in this room. One is pointing to the instructor, and another one is pointing to the students. Thus, this classroom can be a very nice interactive classroom with another college or any e- education system even any videoconference.

For most of the e- education providers, they try to find a good way to make e- education more credible. They would like to give those full-time workers a chance to get their further study, or, for those people who do not care about their degree but who would like to learn more things to fulfill their life. I think that this dream will come true. Times always have been changing, and people’s minds are always changing. For the stereotype of the e- education is not good nowadays. However, it does not mean that it will be bad forever. It just depends on how people do it and think about it. I think e- education and distance learning will be possible in the future.

E Now & Future | Advance Studing | Lifelong Learning