E-Learning and Its Effects on Teaching and Learning in a Global Age

E-learning presents an entirely new learning environment for students, thus requiring a different skill set to be successful (Romiszowski, 2004). Critical thinking, research, and evaluation skills are growing in importance as students have increasing volumes of information from a variety of sources to sort through (New Media Consortium, 2007). Also, particularly in courses that are entirely electronic, students are much more independent than in the traditional setting. This requires that they be highly motivated and committed to learning (Huynh et al., 2003), with less social interaction with peers or an instructor. Students in online courses tend to do as well as those in classrooms, but there is higher incidence of withdrawal or incomplete grades (Zhang, Zhou and Briggs, 2006). E-learning can be viewed as computer assisted learning, and as pedagogy for student-centered and collaborative learning. Early developments in e-learning focused on computer assisted learning, where part or all of the learning content is delivered digitally. More recently the pedagogical dimension of e-learning has become prominent. E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process.