| Online education or e-learning refers to the art of | | | | Most of these institutes offering online education do |
| imparting education via the internet and today online | | | | not always require students to attend the initial |
| learning has emerged ads one of the most popular | | | | orientation programs physically in the campus itself, |
| trends of spreading education and knowledge. The | | | | though for some it may be mandatory. There are |
| progress of multimedia technologies has immensely | | | | several technological tools which are vital for the |
| facilitated the growth of the online education industry | | | | functioning of online education programs. These include |
| which is estimated to be valued at about 38 billion | | | | virtual classrooms, learning management software, |
| euros or more currently. In the United States alone it | | | | simulations, educational animations and games, emails |
| has been revealed through recent statistics, that about | | | | and blogs, discussion boards, MP3 players, screencasts |
| 3.5 million students are engaged in e-learning | | | | and podcasts, electronic performance support system, |
| procedures for gaining higher education. It is interesting | | | | personal digital assistant or PDA, hypermedia, text |
| to note that online education is considered to be | | | | chats, electronic voting system, multimedia CD-ROMs |
| predominantly a form of distant education, it is also | | | | and websites etc. |
| used prominently along worth classroom teaching to | | | | One of the main functions of these online learning |
| aid the quality of education imparted. Therefore, it is | | | | modules is to set certain tasks for the students. Most |
| natural to find that video conferencing or VoIP i.e. voice | | | | of these are performance oriented tasks and these |
| over internet protocol are very helpful in such cases. | | | | are extremely essential to increase the student's |
| The growing demand amidst students has encouraged | | | | proficiency while also aiding the teacher to realize his |
| the foundation of several online colleges and | | | | potential. The virtual classrooms also allow the various |
| educational institutions which coffer academic degrees | | | | students and teachers to interact with each other with |
| via the internet on a plethora of courses. These 'virtual | | | | the use of text chatting and email and therefore |
| learning environments' are more often a preferred | | | | communication is not a barrier. There are several |
| option for a certain section of the student population | | | | e-learning platforms available in the internet and some |
| and the growing demand is a testimony to this fact. | | | | of these are Authorware, ATutor, Sakai Project, |
| Students are encouraged to publish online journals and | | | | Dokeos, Knowledge Forum, Tooling University , |
| e-counseling is also available for distressed students. | | | | FirstClass, OLAT, TutorVista etc. |