Education Information

- It facilitates session s that otherwise wouldn’t be viable face to face – for reasons of cost and/or travel time.

- Sessions can be recorded and shared with those unable to attend.

- Sessions can be held at very short notice for any size of group.

Disadvantages:

- There are access issues in terms of ability to use IT, access to the right equipment and the internet, and quiet space in order to take part. This can be offset in a number of ways - additional time is needed to practice and gain confidence with new digital skills; tutors have to plan carefully to ensure that learners have the necessary skills by the time they want to use them.

- Informal learning can be more difficult to facilitate due to lack of casual and non task based conversations.

- Some participants lack either the confidence or motivation to participate in online sessions – it can be more difficult for the tutor to subtly draw them in during an online session. Conversely digital tools can enable the voice of people who may not otherwise have the confidence to contribute, e.g. using Menti

- One to one tutor interventions are not impossible but can be difficult to make.

- Similarly, sitting in a room on your own can be very dispiriting. Conversely linking with others can break isolation - it takes a bit of time to become familiar with the format, after which often people behave much in the same way as when in a room.

- Using some of the functionality takes expertise and experience – of both the tutor and the group

- Online sessions can be intense and difficult to run over a prolonged period of time, though this depends on the type of learning activities - how active learners are and how sessions are planned

E-learning

Advantages: - Allows for information to be presented in a consistent manner - Once set up can be cheap to run (big economies of scale), though can be expensive to develop effectively - Can be structured to test understanding (though if not done well the danger is it is used simply to test memory recall) - Records completion for compliance records - Quickest of all methods for learners to complete Disadvantages

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