The term e-learning covers a broad scope of electronic assisted teaching. It can refer to classroom aids, making PowerPoint presentations accessible for students away from the classroom and the use of laptops by learners in class. Hybrid learning is where traditional face-to-face teaching is supplemented with online elements. E-learning is also naturally suited to education where teaching is fully online with no classroom elements. Many education establishments create Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) whereby courses and content can be managed through an institutional wide consistent user interface. Through these VLEs students can manage many aspects of their course and gain quick and easy access to course content from anywhere with Internet access.

The flexibility offered by e-learning is one of its key strengths. It is also an extremely cost effective way of delivering content to learners. Increasing numbers of businesses are seeing the benefits of training its staff without them having to travel or spend exorbitant amounts of time away from their desks. E-learning can also reach large numbers of the workforce that would be impossible to train simultaneously using tradtional teaching methods.

The benefits of e-learning are not just for employers and education establishments the learners themselves can also profit greatly from from e-learning methods. The content is accessed at the user’s initiative, allowing them to learn at their own pace rather than that set by the instructor. This ‘self pacing’ ensures they have fully absorbed the content before they move on. Newer methods of e-learning such as ‘screencasting’ highlight these benefits. In a screencast the presenter can create and upload a video which imitates the classroom and lecture experience. This benefits the user as they can directly see his flow of thought and process information that may appear overly complex when presented as plain text. The screencast offers the learner benefits over the traditional lecture, they can pause and rewind the content and self pace their learning experience.

Instead of teaching being slowed down by this ‘self pacing’ e-learning may in fact be faster than traditional courses. Users are easily able to skip or skim content they are comfortable with and move directly and quickly onto the elements of the course they need to learn. E-learning also presents a consistent message to the user, instructor interpretation is eliminated and all users access the same content. E-learning is not location nor time specific. Users can gain access to content at a time and place to suit them.

E-learning also allows the teacher to quickly and easily update the course content. This ensures courses should never become outdated or irrelevant as the teacher can regularly update and amend the course content. Tutors can also more easily track the progress and results of their students allowing them to identify both students who need support and course elements that need modification.

Due to its electronic nature it can integrate and adapt to the latest technological advances ensuring schools, universities, businesses, students and teachers are appropriately and effectively served. E-learning is a modern, efficient and constantly evolving way of learning in the digital age.

A good, robust, extensive VLE will allow a for its user to access a wide variety of different services and facilities, such as the syllabus for the course, through an intuitive and consistent platform. Users should be able to find various pieces of key administrative details such as: the location of seminars and lectures, a help guide plus details of modules and their appropriate credit information. A notice board providing recent course and establishment information could be made available. The VLE will also allow for teaching materials to me made available ranging from, according to the course and learning needs, a few relevant slides and visual aids through to the complete content of the course. A competent LMS can provide additional resources such as reading materials, links to important websites library content and suitable journals. Self and formal assessment procedures are also key components. The VLE is able to personalize the content so you are only provided with the relevant material, different access rights according to level mean students, tutors and administrators are using a portal in accordance with their respective roles. The ability to e-communicate via forums, e-mail and chat rooms is another feature of most LMSs. The learning platform should have the capability of supporting a wide variety of courses and training content, this would allow for an institution or business to have a consistent interface while catering for a broad spectrum of different learners.

Students benefit from using a VLE as they can be, from anywhere with an Internet connection, in contact with their course. Learning is freed from specific time of day and location constraints, obviously this makes distance learning a palatable prospect but it also has benefits for the blended learning experience. Students who, for whatever reason, miss face-to-face teaching can catch up quickly and simply. Learners are no longer left behind and can get quickly back up to speed due to their ability to be in instant touch with course materials. Learners also attain knowledge at different rates to one another. The use of a Virtual Learning Environment allows them to work and learn at their own pace, the tempo no longer set by the quickest, the slowest or the educator. Learning Management Systems are also personal portals so students only see content appropriate to them and thus are not overwhelmed by a deluge of irrelevant and unneeded information. Self assessment gives users the ability to check and monitor their own progress so they can make amendments to their learning and knowledge where necessary.

Educators benefit are able through these Learning Platforms to shape and guide their students learning. Putting their lecture and course notes online means they can better engage students in traditional classes as learners are no longer slaves to perfect note taking. They can supplement their teaching with media and audio content. Placing links on the portal ensures they can guide their students to important and pertinent parts of the web. Putting assessment details, essay and exam details on the portal frees more time to devote to actually teaching the subject. This also give learners a clear picture of what is required of them and when.

For businesses the potential cost and speed advantages of providing necessary staff training through a Learning Management System can be immense. Staff can be trained in a short space of time bringing them up to standard and allowing them to contribute to the company more efficiently. As learners are free to use the content from any location corporations don’t have to waste expenditure on travel other associated costs of moving staff to their teaching locations. E-learning brings the content to them whenever and wherever they are. Staff can also be trained in larger numbers as there are practically no limits to virtual class sizes. Constant assessment also gives businesses the ability to constantly and efficiently monitor the progress and proficiencies of their workforce.

For schools these e-learning platforms allow them to expand the classroom beyond its normal boundaries. Pupils can be engaged wherever they are. Their learning in relation to the Internet can be moulded in fitting directions. Schools can also interact with parents on a deeper and more extensive basis through their on line presence parents can easily be kept abreast of the latest school news. Virtual Learning Environments also allow schools to greatly broaden the scope and heighten the impact of the subjects they teach.

Universities can better time manage the use of their educators, especially if they have large administrative or research duties alongside their teaching requirements. VLEs also give them the opportunity to easily inform the large student bodies of any news, more easily manage problematic course and tutor group sign ups and many other administrative applications. Through the capabilities to provide distance learning through a VLE they can also educate a larger nu,ber of prospective students.

The JoomlaLMS is a commercial component for the Joomla Web content management system. The idea was to create a Learning Management System for Joomla. The JoomlaLMS is available in the UK through resellers and has the following features: documents managment tool, build-in authoring tools (quiz maker and question pool), live conference tool, learning path, gradebook, course satistics and embedded subscriptions.

www.joomlalms.com

A Learning Management system designed to cater for the government and corporate markets. Informetica was developed by Sencia Canada Ltd in 2001, the base system contains some standard modules and also allows for custom modules.

Some Informetica features are: online reporting and tracking, chat capabilities,  WYSIWYG and HTML source editing, extensive file, audio and video upload compatibility (Word, Excel, Power point, Adobe PDF, Flash, HTML, TIFF, JPG, GIF, MOV, AVI etc.), AICC and SCORM compliant, able to enforce time restrained activities, certification issuing and monitoring, testing engine offers over six different question formats, skills assessment tools and surveys, assign different access rights for different users and user groups, calendar tools specific to user groups.

Glow is the name for the Scottish Schools National Intranet which is managed by Education Scotland. Glow is funded by the Scottish Government and is a collaboration between local authorities. The idea was that it would offer Scottish schools interconnectivity, a content delivery infastructure and a national intranet that would contain tools for teaching, learning, sharing and collaborating.

Through its web and browser based VLE the Glow system offers a variety of tools: Glow meet (webconferencing), Glow blogs, Glow forums, Glow wikis, Glow chat, Glow messenger, Glow mail, Glow learn and Glow groups.

Glow is only available to schools in Scotland.

Glow Scotland

Their Pinnacle Suite offers a range of functionality. Through Pinnacle SIS they provide enrollment, attendance, health, transportation and discipline information. Pinnacle grade allows for easier grade standardisation and the real time sharing of student progress. Pinnacle instruction supports curriculum mapping, resources and assessments. Pinnacle pal/aspire/PD/evaluate all offer further services.

Desire2Learn Incorporated develop online Learning Management Systems that are used at more than 450 different institutions globally. The company was founded in 1999 and is located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The software is focused on delivering LMSs for schools, universities, public and corporate organizations.

Some features of the Direct2Learn Learning Environment include: calendar, synchronous integrate, email, notifications, discussions, instant messaging, quizzes, survey & self assessment and gradebook. the company offers different packages tailored to different markets, K-12 schools, higher education, corporations, healthcare and governments offering a slightly different feature set to meet their varied needs.

More relevant information: Webanywhere for learning management systems in Canada as well as e-portfolios and web design services.