Recognition for online course has been steadily increasing over the past couple of years. And there is an online course for almost any subject that you want. The quality of online courses are almost the same as traditional courses, there are even completely free online courses that are on par with traditional courses. There are also many advantages that come with online courses which can make them better than traditional courses. The advantages are:

1. No boundaries: Online courses are restricted by a certain location or a time when you have to be present. You don’t have to attend at a certain time or location, which means that you can attend whenever you want from wherever you want. This also means that you don’t need to fight traffic and you don’t have to change the schedule of your other activities in order to adapt to class-time as with traditional courses. You can do online courses at any time you and at any place (you’ll need an internet connection though).

2. It’s more fun: If the ability to take an online course from your home is not a good enough reason, then what if I told you it is more fun than a traditional course. Online courses use modern methods and technology to make the course more interactive. By using elements of gamification and multimedia the course is more fun, interesting and modern than a traditional course. Another thing is that communication with the teachers and instructors is much easier through the discussion boards. 

3. Cost-effective: Online courses much more cheaper than traditional courses. Some online courses are even completely free. And unlike traditional courses, you can keep all the course material, even after the course ends. You can even keep the lectures and the assignments given to you.

4. It fits: Online course are a good fit for almost everyone. They can just blend into your schedule and most courses will send you emails and notifications in order not forget about them or miss deadlines.

As you can see there are many advantages to online courses. And if you still aren’t sure you can just try an online course and see if you like, they are much cheaper than traditional courses and some are even free.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Social media is often seen as a distraction, something that would lower student productivity. But this is because social media is like any tool if it’s not used correctly it won’t give good results. Sure, social media can be used to connect with friends and family, to waste time chatting with people or discuss meaningless topics. This is what most people use social media for. But it could also be used in a much more productive way and can be used in education. In fact social media is one of the most powerful educational tools we have right now; that’s, of course, if it’s used correctly. When it comes to social media both the educator and the learner need to use it properly to make the most out of it. Some of the ways social media can be used in education are:

1. Making a Facebook group: By making a Facebook group for the class, the class announcements, assignments and deadlines can be easily posted and broadcasted to everyone. Students can also help each other out by asking questions, answering them and explaining concepts to each other.

2. Making a topical twitter account: A twitter account could be made that talks about a certain topic. Tweeting creative ideas and/or up-to date information and resources for studying. It can also be used to discuss current topic in the news.

3. Encouraging students to showcase their work: Making students post their work and showcase it on social media, lets them evaluate each other’s work. It makes them realize and understand the different perspectives of others. All of this makes them more motivated to become more adept at what they do.

4. Instagram as an outlet of student creativity: Instagram can be used to showcase the creativity of students. A carefully crafted Instagram class account can showcase student artwork, photos of the students with books or items that interest them; or things they have built. It can be used to broadcast the accomplishments of students. And if it’s masterfully crafted, students will use it as a resource to brainstorm ideas. A picture is worth a thousand words.

  Most students and people already use social media in a non-educational way so integrating it into education isn’t hard. And it would make learning more fun and interesting. And it gives students new opportunities and opens new doors for their future. Social media is the world’s largest city and smallest village.

Written by: Osama Waheib

In the past, in order to find an expert to learn from, you either had to be lucky to have somebody living near you or you had to travel to find that expert. You had to have a lot of money in order to get world class education, but nowadays it’s much easier. Technology brought the world together and turned it into a small village. Consequently, learning has become easier and more connected. You could connect and communicate with experts in a certain profession in a matter of minutes or seconds.

Online courses or MOOCs are becoming more and more relevant. You could learn real and applicable skills that are used in the real world from experts while you are in your underpants. You can get a job without a college degree. You can learn a lot of things online now, not just a lot of things, but almost anything online. All of this for little to no cost at all. You just need to be motivated, determined and put in some effort.

Another thing about MOOCs is that you aren’t learning alone. Some courses have hundreds and even thousands of students enrolled at a time. There are usually discussions boards and forums where students can discuss the course material and help each other. And since most MOOCs are international this gives students the ability to interact and make friends with people from various cultures and various backgrounds. This makes MOOCs give a college like experience minus physically meeting new people.

Though, a negative thing about MOOCs is that if you aren’t motivated enough you might not complete it. Since MOOCs lack the physical interaction that traditional courses offer it might be easy to lose interest or forget about them. This can be solved by taking the online course with a friend or making friends and study groups within the course. This would also make taking the course more fun and interesting.

Technology is moving and advancing very quickly, a lot of popular jobs that exist now didn’t exist 10 years ago. Jobs like digital marketing specialist, cloud services specialist and data scientists didn’t exist 10 years ago. And reports from the U.S. Department of Labor, McKinsey and Company, and the World Economic Forum say that 65% of grade-school kids will have jobs in the future that don’t exist today. Experts now believe that almost 50% of occupations existing today will be completely redundant by 2025. Therefore learning new skills and keeping up with the fast-paced advance of technology is a must.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Smartphones are powerful little tools that fit in our pockets but most people don’t make full use of them. They can also be a major distraction for students and negatively impact them. But if they are used correctly they can be very useful. Most people use their smartphones to check WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media, they might also play games on them. But what most people don’t realize is that smartphone can do a huge number of things and aren’t limited to those negligible things. Smartphones are compact powerhouses that contain major processing power and a wide range of sensors within them. This gives smartphones the ability to be very useful and helpful for students. Some of the more productive uses of smartphones are:

1. Checking facts: One of the most obvious uses for smartphones is checking facts. Students can easily check facts and access the infinite source of information which is the internet instantly.
2. Test themselves: There are many online tests and apps which let students take tests on different subjects. Those tests are also automatically graded and can help students gain insight on what they’re lacking in. They can also help students prepare for actual tests given by their teachers, or better yet the teachers could make tests for their students and send them using one of the many apps that do this.
3. Dictionaries: There are many dictionary apps that students could download. Most of those dictionaries offer that ability to check words offline giving students the ability to check the meaning of a word instantly even while offline. Those dictionary apps also offer nice feature like
4. Translations: Just like dictionaries there are many apps which offer the ability to translate foreign words. Some of these translation apps also double as dictionaries.
5. Time management: Smartphones are powerful time management tools with many apps that help you manage your time. These apps will give you notifications on important dates and the due dates of your various assignments. You can also synchronize those apps and calendars with your other devices if any.
6. E-book readers: Smartphones can be great e-readers especially if they are on the larger side. You can download any pdf document or e-book and read it right away on your phone.
7. Store Formulas: Smartphones lets students easily store mathematical and scientific formulas and keep them close to them. You don’t even need to manually store the most common science and math formulas as there many apps that contain them already.
8. Language learning: There are many apps that help you learn foreign languages. Some of these apps help you immerse yourself in the language by offering images or short stories in the language you are learning. If you want to further immerse yourself there are apps that connect you with natives of the language you want to learn in order to talk with them.
9. Further learning: Students can access different material on their subject and find different courses, books and resources related to that subject.

As you can see smartphones can be very useful if used correctly. They aren’t notorious timewasters, time killers and distractors that they are known as. Though if you aren’t careful enough it can be easy for you to get lost and distracted in the vast oceans which they contain.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Technology is helping teachers to evolve and expand past linear, text-based and “traditional” teaching methods which don’t bring out the true potential of most students. It also helps students who learn better in different and more untraditional ways. It evolved from being a small and contained computer class to a vast toolset that helps both teachers and students in doing their jobs. Technology helps schools in many ways and here are some of them:

• Real world situations: Technology, if used correctly can help students prepare for real world situations. It can help them learn about various jobs and professions but not just in definitions and what they do. By using epistemic games students are put in different roles like a city planner, journalist, or an engineer. They are asked to solve real world problems which are encountered in the role they are playing. This helps the students understand different jobs more and engages them in those jobs in order for the student to understand which job suits him more than the other. It also helps them gain experience and idea of the real world before venturing out into it.

• Diverse styles: Schools host different students from different backgrounds and each one of those students thinks differently. Technology helps teachers adapt to the different styles which their students learn by. Technology is just as diverse as the students who attend schools.

• Better simulations: Some concepts are easier to explain than others, for example how vibrations produce sound using a tuning fork is easier than say explaining how molecules interact together or why some chemical reactions are more dangerous than others. Which is where technology comes and saves the day. By simulating those situations in a computer it saves both the teachers and students a major headache of explaining and understanding those concepts.

• Global learning: The internet makes it easy to view information from all over the world. Students can see the views of people from different countries on a matter, they could even learn about the different cultures of other countries. Better yet is that they could even meet with people from different countries and learn from them different things from that country.

• E-books: We’ve already talked about E-books here. And they are very powerful tools that help students achieve more. And they aren’t even used to their full capacity. E-books are very powerful tools that go beyond having 5 books in a space smaller than one traditional book.

Technology is an amazing tool that helps students take control over their own learning, it helps them think for themselves and take decisions. Those were only some of the uses of technology in schools, but the possibilities and uses of technology are endless. How do you think technology helps schools? Tell us in the comments.

By: Osama Waheib

1. Connect with you instructors: Connecting with your instructors is an important part of learning. You shouldn’t hesitate to contact your instructor to ask for help as your instructor is a real person. So whenever you are stuck at something or are not sure about something you could contact your instructor at any time and they will be happy to have an active student.

2. Participate: You shouldn’t only count on talking with your instructor to get the most out of the course. Usually the place where you get the most out of the course is the discussion boards and the forums. You should actively participate in the discussions of your fellow students and take the time to think about what’s being discussed. As that will give you more knowledge and insight about the subject from the various perspectives of your fellow students.

3. Help your peers: You should try and help your fellow students to create a positive learning experience and environment. By helping your fellow students with problems and things they don’t understand, you will be practicing what you have learned. You will also know if you really understand what you have learned so far; to explain something properly you will have to be able to understand it yourself.

4. Make a schedule: Your instructor gives you the due dates for each assignment so make use of those dates and plan ahead. Don’t procrastinate and leave the work until the last minute. You should make a schedule and stick to it. Making a schedule will help you in organizing and managing your time which is where the beauty of online classes shines. Organizing your time is the key to success for everything in life.

5. Have fun! : Having fun while learning is an important part for an effective learning process. If learning feels like a chore it will demotivate you will start to procrastinate and you will get less out of the experience. So have fun, meet new interesting people from different cultures, make new friends and have fun solving complex problems together. As this will keep your refreshed.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Online learning and virtual classrooms are quickly becoming a replacement for traditional classrooms, because they are cheaper and more flexible. Many students reported that they can concentrate in a virtual classroom more than they do when they are in an actual classroom.

To put it simply the benefits and advantages of a virtual classroom outweigh the benefits of traditional classrooms by leaps and bounds they are simply on a whole another level than traditional classroom they just are… Ok I am done that enough praise for virtual classrooms; let’s get into why they are better than traditional classrooms in more details, shall we?

1. Simplicity and flexibility: Location and time are the two most limiting factors when wanting to learn something. Virtual classrooms almost completely eliminate those two limitations, in an online course or a virtual classroom you can work at your own pace, and so you can adjust it to your own schedule.
2. More productive: With the integration of technology into the learning process; clever design, user experience and multimedia virtual classrooms can prove to be more efficient and deliver better results.
3. Much lower costs: Online courses are a more affordable option than traditional courses; they provide you with the most up to date content with way cheaper costs. The total costs for a traditional course are usually higher than base cost, due to costs of commuting; some traditional programs even require you to buy expensive textbooks. These additional costs aren’t present in online courses where the only commuting you will do is walking a couple of steps to get to your laptop, that’s if it’s even far from you and if your course requires a textbook you can  find it online easily in the form an e-book.
4. More convenient, comfortable and friendly environment: As previously mentioned online courses allow students to plan their study time around their day and that’s only the tip of the iceberg; students don’t have to attend physical sessions and the material is electronically sent to them, then they can read the material and do the assignments. All of this gives the student time for his work and/or precious time with his family instead of the stress that comes with having to go to a physical session; fighting traffic and finding parking places in order to do so.
5. More interaction: Although there is controversy on whether virtual classrooms offer more interaction than traditional classrooms, one thing is certain: shy students can interact and participate more in virtual classrooms, some even report they can focus more because virtual class rooms are more distraction free.

In conclusion, I recommend virtual classrooms due to the freedom, flexibility and ease of use. They are just much simpler and free you from a lot of the stress and fatigue that comes with real classrooms.

Written by: Osama Waheib