Everything is on “E” – from e-books to e-lectures. Even the smartest student has to get an overview of the world of e-learning.
It is already common practice in the USA and is currently in the implementation phase in Germany: Blended learning will be the future form of studying. What this means is a mixture of media didactic concepts for the private home computer, while the student is only asked to come to campus for events where actual presence is unavoidable. Universities are moving their lectures online. Students meet in virtual classrooms and work in groups, regardless of where they are. They are also looked after online by tutors. The spatial and temporal flexibility of students and lecturers is increasing. Learning content becomes more effective and efficient in terms of media didactics.
Never late and always the best seat
The student no longer has to come to the lecture hall with the risk of being late. The lecture is available as a video on the Internet. Accessible at any time, the student can now decide for themselves when and where they want to concentrate on the learning material. Stopping or rewinding wasn't possible before. The learner also doesn't have to worry about being left behind if he or she becomes ill, for example. Some people can't really absorb the material until midnight, but then they devour three lectures in a row. Maybe the student works part-time or has children. Thanks to digitalization, it is possible to adapt your learning rhythm to your life situation.
E-Lectures
E-lectures – i.e. online lectures – are not yet a standard offering at German universities. Projects such as Lecture2Go at the University of Hamburg and Mobile Lectures at TU Darmstadt show what the future could look like. A large selection of e-lectures sorted by subject area is available there. If you can't find what you're looking for on offer at German universities, you can, for example, take entire series of lectures from the University of California's webcast.berkeley data pool.
Well connected
Skype is probably still the most convenient solution for teleconferences. The free audio chat is particularly useful in combination with other online services such as twiddla.com, an electronic whiteboard. With just a few clicks you can create a fresh “sheet” and each meeting participant can draw on the sheet with the mouse, which in turn appears on everyone else’s screen in real time. When it comes to producing a multi-author document, collaborative writing systems are a blessing. The user-friendly online editor typewith.me gets started quickly. Each participant receives a cursor in the document and can immediately see what someone else is typing. With a little consultation, the best of many minds can quickly come together. Doodle.com has been used for mutual appointments, dropbox.com and wetransfer.com for file exchange.
A library in your pocket
E-books have some advantages that pay off. The E-Pub file format offers more functions than the well-known PDF file. In addition to the dynamic text field, which always displays optimally depending on the magnification level and display dimensions, and links within the document, there is a full-text search, which is particularly advantageous in specialist texts. Such e-books can also be provided with side notes and bookmarks. Because of the low storage space consumption, with the right e-book reader you have an entire library in your pocket. Provided you have high-quality books, this means getting a qualified answer to every question at any time. The information quality is in a completely different league than that of the usual smartphone-Internet combination.
E-book readers are light and thin and have enormous battery life. Thanks to the E Ink display, reading is easier on the eyes and less tiring than with a tablet or laptop - it reads like it is on paper. However, there is no need to turn pages, an important haptic feature when working with printed books, which cannot be replaced by any simulation. You can get a good e-book reader for just 150 euros. Current test reports are easy to find online. Of course, e-books can also be displayed on the PC. The Caliber software displays all e-book formats and offers a converter and library function. Firefox also offers an add-on: the E-Pub Reader. Both are free and platform independent.
Endless textbooks
There are license-free and license-required specialist books. The sources of supply range from bookstores to online libraries to illegal file-sharing platforms. The duality of literature is equally divergent. Here you can find everything from catastrophic scripts to huge collections of PDF files of scanned book pages on a topic or excellently prepared digital versions of standard academic works with all the technical features. The quickest way is through the large bookstores amazon.de, ebook.de, lehmanns.de. You should also use the literature search on the university's own library website. Many university libraries have negotiated licensing agreements for important standard works. One of the largest online libraries –Gutenberg.org – makes its range of over 40,000 copyright-free “retro digitized copies” available free of charge. Aristotle, Nietzsche and Kafka are timeless and always good. However, you should not look for the latest findings in quantum field theory here.
The learning material now comes via the Internet and is processed via the Internet. Technologically, Germany is well equipped for this. The ability to motivate yourself is now even more required than before, otherwise you will quickly succumb to complacency due to the sheer amount of self-determination. Now that the boundaries between work and leisure are becoming increasingly blurred, studying requires even more self-organization and self-discipline. It is becoming less and less necessary to appear on campus in person. The delocalized student masters the use of media technologies and enjoys the freedom to adapt the rhythm of work and learning to his or her individual situation.
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Everything is on “E” – from e-books to e-lectures. Even the smartest student has to get an overview of the world of e-learning. It is already common practice in the USA and is currently in the implementation phase in Germany: Blended learning will be the future form of studying. What this means is a mixture
