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eLearning's a virtual hit with students

More people are choosing to tackle studies online

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
May 23rd, 2007 issue

KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Many university students are choosing to do their studies online rather than sit through daily classroom lectures.
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One consistently hot topic of conversation around town is where you can pick up free Wi-Fi. But not everyone is looking for a place to check their blogs or Skype with friends. Nowadays, it‘s easy to find folks plugged in at Internet cafes, catching up on homework and class projects.
KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Jeff Buehler, an academic adviser at Prague College, says the school tries to be flexible with students' busy schedules.
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In recent years, distance-based learning or eLearning, has become a popular part of Czech university and college curriculums. Educators here have noticed more and more students are opting out of regular classroom attendance in favor of virtual learning.   
“We try very, very hard to be as flexible as possible with students’ schedules,” says Jeff Buehler, an academic adviser and program coordinator at Prague College.  
Tracy Dove, the director of marketing and recruitment at the University of New York Prague agrees, noting that many UNYP courses use an “online learning platform” to supplement classroom activities.
“At the request of our students,” Dove says, “we’ve encouraged professors to make more extensive use of these resources, which allow students to participate from anywhere they have an Internet connection.”
Buehler refers to this combination of in-class and virtual activity as “blended learning” and says it’s been a real boon for students with other responsibilities besides school, like, for instance, nine-to-five jobs or family demands.
By all accounts, the eLearning phenomenon has been slowly gaining speed in the Czech Republic.
The Education Ministry reports that it is investing more time and resources into advancing the country’s educational Internet abilities, in an effort to make eLearning a viable option for professional development.
A 2004 report for the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Union by the Danish Technological Institute prominently states that “the Czech market is relatively new to eLearning, but one of its characteristics is that it is developing very fast and in that way approaching the West European standards for use of eLearning.”
According to the country’s National Center for Distance Education (NCDE), the Czech cities making the biggest strides in the eLearning race include Prague, Liberec, Brno and Olomouc. Most universities in these locations, the NCDE says, have launched popular distance-learning courses for both students and teachers.
These strides have not gone unnoticed by Western-based school administrators.
Jeanette Purcell, chief executive for the United Kingdom’s Association of MBAs, the accrediting body for Master of Business Administration programs, says using Internet-based courses to advance one’s education is growing in popularity throughout Europe, including, in particular, members of the former Soviet bloc.
Milan Malý, chairman of the Czech Association of MBA Schools, says there have been “some attempts” to implement more eLearning in Czech MBA degree programs.
Purcell thinks that is a good idea.
This growing online option serves adult students with pre-existing commitments well, she says, and is “especially popular with women, who were notoriously hard to get [into] MBA programs” due to the needs of work and family life.
Prague College has included an online component for its students since its 2004 foundation. The platform has grown up around the school’s students and teachers, Buehler says.
“We’re still quite proud of the fact that we’re a learning center,” he says, but the school does have entirely online courses as a possible future goal.
“As we’ve learned how to use it,” Buehler explains, “students have more demands, and teachers do more, so we’ve made it more comprehensive.”
This includes 24-hour access, course overviews and assignments, teacher contacts, weekly class notes, and a digital library stocked with thousands of books, journals and articles.
“You can really create a nice, interactive environment,” for students of a traditional course in the eLearning sphere, Buehler says.
“It’s a great resource for the teachers as well,” he adds. As a teacher of some courses at Prague College himself, Buehler appreciates the ability to post the entire outline and assignment list for a course at the beginning of the semester and then just update along the way. And the online learning platform has also made it more difficult for students to come up with excuses for not doing homework, since teachers can see how often their students log onto the class site.
But this online learning benefit is not only open to university students and teachers. Expats looking to get their Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL, certification can now find training classes on the Internet through many worldwide institutions.
The course offered through the local company ITTP consists of 100 hours of lessons that include learning theories, teaching skills and advice on job searching. Program administrators explain that students receive tasks from online “teachers” and complete assignments and projects at their own pace.
Internet-based learning is not for everyone, however. With the need for a bigger investment in time management to take on the same amount of work with less supervision, Buehler says, “Students have to have a certain level of maturity to handle this kind of study.”

Brooke Edge can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


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