Online Learning: Developing 21st Century Skills And Evaluating Credibility Of Online Sources

Importance of Online Learning

Discuss how your experiences as a consumer, produce and sharer of information in the online world have assisted you in developing 21st Century skills and provide examples that demonstrate this. Discuss how the development of an informational resource, or your work in the discussion board, has helped you understand how to evaluate the credibility of online sources in an academic environment. Identify some of the advantages and limitations of working collaboratively in an online community and reflect on how you might exploit advantages and overcome the limitations.

The purpose of preparing this essay is to assess the importance of the making communication and to learn through online. From the perspective of the consumer, I can say that the learning from the 21^st century is quite different from the learning techniques that prevail in the recent times. The concept of learning online is characterized by effectiveness and popularity. The recent estimates make a clear indication that approximately over four million students in the territory of North America are opting for the courses that are delivered online. The points of study for the evolution of online learning are primarily due to the several options for the instruction between the teacher-student. In addition to that, I can say that for the evolution of techniques of learning through online opens the avenue for the teacher and student to make the interaction through several modes of interaction. The concept of online learning had evolved from a long time back when the teachers and lecturers through the process of teleconference delivered the instructions (Buckingham and Willett 2013).

From the point of view of consumers, the process of online learning and communication is a great boon. It is because through that process the online learner gets the advantage to make the access the renounced libraries of the world sitting at home. It is of great help to me and the other online readers. The act of accessing the global libraries helps me to avoid the get the required data easily rather than running to the library and search the books. The online learning process also helps in the finding of any important study material at any point of time. Hence, my point as a consumer, the process of online learning is extremely helpful and useful (Carroll et al. 2013).

From the perspective of a producer, I can say that the process of online learning is also important equally. As a producer, I can search and get any information that I require for producing any assignment through the process of online learning. For the purpose of referring, I often use the online sources. It helps in making my assignment of high quality. Hence, through the process of online learning and communication, I can produce and prepare my assignment very easily without wasting a lot of time doing the assignments through the earlier methods of learning (Giesbers et al. 2014).

Developing 21st Century Skills as a Consumer, Producer, and Sharer

From the point of view of the sharer, I can share and get any information through the method of online learning. It becomes extremely easily for me to share any assignment with my friends and get the same help from my friends. I can also get any assignment from my teacher or instructor at any point in time. It helps me to complete my assignment at the stipulated time. I can also share my completed assignment with my university through uploading the same on the website of the university at any point in time. It helps me to avoid the preparing heavy projects for sharing with my teachers. Hence, online learning helps in sharing of useful information relating to academic learning from the teacher at any time. The techniques of online learning help in communicating with my teacher very easily (Grace et al. 2014).

Now, the important topic of discussion in this essay is regarding the credibility of the online sources. It can be said that any online source may be termed as credible in case that souces makes the satisfaction of the five conditions specified by Metger in the year 2007. The conditions that make the determination of the credibility of any online source are authorship that relates the fact of the person who has written the material. The next condition is the purpose of the purpose of the online source that has been chosen by me. The purpose makes the reflection of the motive with which the online material is prepared. The third factor that denotes the credibility is the procedure that is used in preparing the online source. The procedure of the online source refers to the process of developing the online source (Jolliffe et al. 2012).

The next important factor in judging the credibility is for knowing the reliability of online source by me. The basic and the primary questions of credibility refers to the questions "who, how and why" that is an addition to the question of the when the resource was produced.  From the general perspective, I aim to choose those resources that are not excessive of five years older unless such source is written by the seminal authors or are seminal texts. The term seminal text refers to the text that reflects a strong influence on the ideas in any particular field (Kear et al. 2014).

In my opinion, the sources that are reliable must make the fulfillment of certain conditions. The c conditions are that the source must be relevant. The term relevant refers to the source must of immense relevance to the topic that is to be discussed. The second condition is that the source must be verifiable. The term verifiable means and denotes that information that possesses the capability of being corroborated by other sources that are credible. The third condition is that the source must be unbiased. The term unbiased means the source must not possess any biases (Means et al. 2014). 

Evaluating the Credibility of Online Sources

The next concept that has to be taken into consideration by me is the factor whether I am information literate or not. The term information literate means and relates to my capacity to get engaged with the data and knowledge that is available online along and the techniques that are to be applied from my side for making the interpretation of such data. Very often, it is observed through the act of people that they tend to believe every data that they see online (Salmon 2013). 

There are certain guidelines that are provided by the Australian and New Zealand Literacy Framework for making the identification of reliable sources that are available online. The Australian and New Zealand Literacy Framework recommended that every information-literate person must follow. The first recommendation is that the every information-literate person must make the recognition of the need of getting information. Every information-literate person must make the determination of the extent to which the information is required. Every information-literate person must make the access the information that is available much efficiently (Simpson 2013). There is the requirement of every information-literate person to make the critical evaluation of the sources of information and the information itself. There is also the requirement for every information-literate person to manipulate, store and make the classification and redrafting the information that is generated and collected. Every information-literate person must make the incorporation of the information that is selected from my database of knowledge. There is also the requirement of every information-literate person to make the usage of the information make the learning and make the creation of new knowledge and for making quick decisions and solving problems (Simonson and Zvacek 2014).

There are certain advantages and disadvantages of working online in collaboration. The primary advantage is that when people collaborate to learn online, then they can make the division of work that has to be done and it also helps in the finding of proper sources of information that are required in making any particular assignment. The advantage lies in making the effective study through the division of work among the participants of collaborative learning online. In the case of any huge study, it is not possible for one person to make the research of efficient information through searching online. Hence, at the time, it is essential for making the study through collaborating online. The collaboration for making the online study also helps in the availability important information that is not available otherwise while making the individual study (Watson et al. 2014).

Advantages and Limitations of Working Collaboratively in an Online Community

In addition to the advantages, there are also certain disadvantages of making online study through collaboration. The primary disadvantage that can be associated with the online study through collaboration is the non-participation of all the participants in collaboration. It is seen in several conditions that the participants in the collaborative learning do not make the active participation in making the research through online. Such participants often tend to make the gain through the findings of the other participants of the collaboration. The non-participation of any participant affects the working motivation of participants that are involved working in the collaboration actively (Yan et al. 2013).     

The primary objective of the collaborative participation in online learning shall be that all the members shall participate actively in making the research work. This would help to address the goals of online learning through collaboration.

Hence, from the above discussion the process of online learning and communication is of immense importance and helpful for the students and me. The primary process for making online learning shall involve in recognizing the credibility of the source and then analyze the data available online in the knowledge database.  

Reference List

Buckingham, D. and Willett, R., 2013. Digital generations: Children, young people, and the new media. Routledge.

Carroll, J.A., Diaz, A., Meiklejohn, J., Newcomb, M. and Adkins, B., 2013. Collaboration and competition on a wiki: The praxis of online social learning to improve academic writing and research in under-graduate students.Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 29(4), pp.513-525.

Giesbers, B., Rienties, B., Tempelaar, D. and Gijselaers, W., 2014. A dynamic analysis of the interplay between asynchronous and synchronous communication in online learning: The impact of motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), pp.30-50.

Grace, E., Raghavendra, P., Newman, L., Wood, D. and Connell, T., 2014. Learning to use the Internet and online social media: What is the effectiveness of home-based intervention for youth with complex communication needs?. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, p.0265659013518565.

Jolliffe, A., Ritter, J. and Stevens, D., 2012. The online learning handbook: Developing and using web-based learning. Routledge.

Kear, K., Chetwynd, F. and Jefferis, H., 2014. Social presence in online learning communities: the role of personal profiles. Research in Learning Technology, 22.

Means, B., Bakia, M. and Murphy, R., 2014. Learning online: What research tells us about whether, when and how. Routledge.

Salmon, G., 2013. E-tivities: The key to active online learning. Routledge.

Simonson, M. and Zvacek, S., 2014. Teaching and learning at a distance. Information Age Pub.

Simpson, O., 2013. Supporting students in online open and distance learning. Routledge.

Watson, J., Pape, L., Murin, A., Gemin, B. and Vashaw, L., 2014. Keeping pace with K-12 digital learning: An annual review of policy and practice.Evergreen Education Group.

Yan, F., Sundaram, S., Vishwanathan, S.V.N. and Qi, Y., 2013. Distributed autonomous online learning: Regrets and intrinsic privacy-preserving properties. Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 25(11), pp.2483-2493.