E-Learning

E-Learning in Educational Programs

[Name of the Institute]E-Learning in Educational Programs

Introduction

The study aims to determine learners' perceptions of the use of ICT in learning at Open University Malaysia (OUM) by examining their abilities and experiences, with a view to identifying areas for enhancing the effectiveness of e-learning. E-learning is the use of information technologies and communication technologies (ICT) to generate, disseminate and manage educational content. In general, the e-learning is associated with the web, but this is not necessarily so.

Objectives of study

Given the ICT facilities in OUM, it is pertinent to find out the extent to which learners are using them to improve their learning outcome. The present study was thus carried out to achieve the following objectives (a) to obtain a baseline assessment of learners' abilities and experiences in using ICT, (b) to obtain learners' views on the opportunities that can be enhanced by ICT, particularly its actual and potential role in learning and education

The Problem

The issues which we are going to address in this research paper regarding e-learning, are the issues of usability and accessibility of the e-learning system. Since, we all know that today e-learning has become an immensely important educational tool having multiple benefits, but due to these two issues e-learning is becoming an unsuitable application for a large number of users, as a result of these issues e-learning is failing to satisfy a large number of audience that want to use this medium of learning, as audiences have addressed some issues regarding the accessibility and usability of e-learning systems. Along, with that in this research has enabled us to find out that issues of usability and accessibility are linked together in an intrinsically (Strobbe. C, pp.544-551, 2006).

Background to the Problem

The access to communication and information for people who have disability with the help of modern technology such as e-learning is hugely acknowledged in the United Kingdom as a significant for the social inclusion, because it is immensely important that people with disabilities should be able to access and use communication and information technologies just like everyone else. Especially, in the higher education they are confronted with the use of e-learning systems such as VLE, WBT, and LMS (Seale, pp.45-78, 2006).

The issue of accessibility in e-learning system has been a topic of hot debate for the past ten years, because it would be simply senseless to introduce a new technology, if all the components of that technology could not be accessed by the users, a difficulty in perfectly interacting with the system could be proved as a distraction for the people. Along, with that another issues with the e-learning systems is off its usability, since e-learning is still a developing technology, there is a need that this technology is developed for the people, and according to their need and requirements (Brewer, 2005).

Scope of the study

E-learning is the use of information technologies and communication technologies (ICT) to generate, disseminate and manage educational content. In general, the e-learning is associated with the web, but ...