How Online Education Aids Professional Development

The cost structure of online learning has been drastically decreased thanks to the cloud. In the recent decade, cloud platforms such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure have supplied beneficial resources and increased the market, lowering the cost of setting up an online learning platform to a reasonable level. 

Online learning comes with a slew of benefits, including lower costs and greater accessibility. Today, online learning has become so popular that many colleges and even governments have made it essential to finish and pass a specific online course in order to receive a certificate.

There was a time when online learning was viewed as a viable alternative for students who could not attend traditional classes. For today’s learners, online learning appears to be the most viable alternative for continuing their education. A massive high-speed internet web has been stretched across the globe today. 

Many technologies, such as the cloud, have benefited from the high-speed internet. There’s no denying that these technologies have always been present, but they can’t be used effectively without high-speed internet. Furthermore, high-speed internet has given life to online education, allowing learning management system businesses to prosper. With online learning, anyone can study anything at any time and from anywhere as long as they have a good internet connection and a smartphone or computer.

Also Check: How Colleges are Using Online Education

What is Online Professional Development?

Professional Development via the Internet or A set of classes aimed at helping candidates at their home. Professional development gave via the internet in the form of a formal class or an informal, one-on-one format. Video, images, interactive sessions, texts, exams, dialogues, and other diverse learning tools may be included.

Components Of Online Professional Development:

• Online courses
• Media
• Synchronous Discussion
• Asynchronous Discussion
• The Internet
• Web-based multimedia
• Blogs

Also Check: How Online Education Aids Distance Learning

Activities that contribute to professional development

• Participation in professional organizations – Attending local, national, regional conferences or webinars sponsored by professional organizations.
• Pursuing formal degree programs, certificates, accreditations, and other credentials through various educational programs by learning institutes.
• Presenting papers, presentations, conferences, webinars, or workshops.
• Serving as a board member or committee member.
• Conducting research and presenting research papers to others.

Leading tools that support online professional development

1. Adobe flash
2. Moodle
3. Lectora X
4. Articulate studio
5. Blackboard
6. Adobe e-learning suite
7. OLAT
8. ATutor
9. Sakai
10. e- Front
11. Claroline

Benefits Of Online Professional Development For Individuals

• Versatility and Flexibility
• Achieve advancement at work.
• Change careers.
• Be better at doing a job.
• Meet the requirements of professional bodies.
• Possibility of creating a sense of community among groups.
• Improve career prospects by achieving additional qualifications.
• It can give teachers a unified dialect to use when discussing teaching and learning.
• Face-to-face professional development provides less opportunity and scope for participant assessment and accountability.
• Online technologies can also help instructors and other organizations form bonds.
• Makes candidates confident for future accountability.
• Candidates can learn, grow, lead and influence others as well.

Approaches To Professional Development

• Skill-based training- Allows participants to learn concepts, necessary behaviors, practice learning the new information or behaviors, and receive feedback on their performance. Making the most of a training program.
• Job Assignments- Learning by working on real problems and dilemmas. The key element in a development assignment is challenging.
• Developmental Relationships- Learning through interaction with others. Three major roles that a person can play include assessment, challenge, and support.

Skills that a candidate acquires as a result of online learning

1. Organizing their time- A learner now has no timetable, and neither staff nor teachers can create one for him to follow throughout the day. As a result, the learner is alone with a teacher and a clock on the screen, thus keeping track of every single second will instill one of the most crucial abilities in his personality.
2. Self-discipline- There is no one to keep an eye on when learning online. As a result, the student must be honest with himself and study accordingly. Furthermore, the student develops “self-discipline” as a result of adopting this behavior.
3. Well-balanced mindset- Learning online means that a student has picked a subject that piques his interest and is studying it at his leisure from anywhere he wants, with the rest of the world as his classmate. As a result, it enables the learner to thrive in whatever he is studying.
4. Analysis- In the learning phase, time is extremely important. When students, guardians, and, most importantly, teachers are all watching the student’s every move. This monitoring aids teachers in understanding how each student thinks and how he might improve his performance. The latest software, such as Learning Management Systems with adaptive learning capabilities, makes it easier to monitor and detect student needs.

Conclusion

Professional development is quite simply a means of supporting people in the workplace to understand more about the environment in their work, the job, and how people can do better.

Professional development provides a means whereby people can keep in sync with the changes, broaden their skills and be more efficient in their work.