Cultus
One of the most successful methods for educating people today is e-learning. Throughout the world, people are using e-learning to acquire new skills, languages and even lifesaving techniques. Careers are being built with e-learning as thousands of students receive degrees from universities and technical colleges via online study.
E-learning uses a variety of different media for disseminating educational material, including DVD’s, CD-ROM’s, virtual learning environments, websites or webinars.
Online Study
The concept of online study was introduced in the early 1960’s in California and was used to teach math and reading to young children in elementary schools. As computer technology raced ahead, e-learning took on a more extensive role in education and by the 1990’s, with the advent of the World Wide Web teachers began using emerging technologies to create course websites along with simple sets of instructions for its students. This was the beginning of university correspondence courses
Over the next few decades, e-learning took over classroom study in almost every area of education. Finance and investments jumped on the e-learning bandwagon when brokers realized that with the ease of trading online, traders should become more knowledgeable about financial markets.
They began offering short online trading tips on their websites and these became very popular with their account holders.
There are many online tutorials offered today to both novice and experienced traders. As many investors abandon the stock markets due to their lackluster performances, they are moving over to other financial instruments, some of which are unfamiliar to them. Before undertaking to trade in these new investment vehicles, they feel they must re-educate themselves as quickly as possible. E-learning or online classes suits their needs perfectly.
Benefits
Sitting at your laptop in a relaxed environment is one of the benefits of online study. No need to attend formal classes. Your hours are your own and you can ‘tune’ into your class whenever you wish. You can repeat the lesson as often as you need and many e-learning courses offer quizzes so you can test your knowledge before moving on to the next subject. This flexibility allows you to continue working at your place of employment while learning a new career from home.
When researching which online financial course to take, the first thing to explore is the backgrounds of the people who developed the software package. Experienced traders and longtime brokers are in the best position to offer a professional course with accurate and up-to-date material. Savvy computer programmers have tremendous ability these days to create quality courses using a variety of media such as animated videos, interactive question-and-answer sessions and immediate responses to queries by the students. Make sure you choose one that covers the material you need.
Online education can be quite expensive, with tuitions as high as $2000. However, there are many online educational seminars which are offered to the public free of charge. Some of these are available on broker websites and are provided to registered account holders. Others are run by free financial services that have no connection to any one particular brokerage firm. FXAcademy, for example, is a recently launched independent Forex tutorial with over 28 lessons ranging from the basics to more advanced subjects.
As technology moves ahead, online education will continue to explore new horizons. How far this will go is anyone’s guess. Will we be able to reach right into the computer and join the instructor as he points to the white board? Or will we find ourselves standing in the chief’s kitchen as we work together to cook up that delicious soufflé? Anything can happen. Stay tuned.
Cina Coren is a contributing editor to dailyforex.com and a free lance blogger.
