Learning on the Internet

I'll start with a quote I believe in.

"To know that we do not know, makes knowing worth knowing."

E-learning is becoming rather popular as there are more and more information on the Internet. However, how can we be very sure that the information we see on the Internet is reliable? How do we know the information is accurate and not biased? How much can we really learn from the Internet?

Even some universities are introducing e-learning. One example would be the University of Manchester. They have introduced the e-learning platform where their students will form e-learning communities and there are e-learning bulletins where their professors will post up notes and where they can discuss certain topics.

Does e-learning really work?

I would say that e-learning is a really useful tool and the best alternative to classroom learning. However, I strongly feel that there are certain areas of study which cannot be very successful if students were to learn solely online.

Two examples include Medicine and Veterinary Science. If these students were to solely rely on e-learning, they will be unable to gain the practical expertise to perform their duties in their future career in the medical arena. In fact, I feel that it would be highly dangerous if they don't have any practical experience as this will bring risk to the patients, be it human or animal, that they are treating.

However, e-learning is definitely useful if used as an addition to classroom learning. It can act as a supplement to what the student learnt in the classroom as there is a myraid of information they can tap on online.

How will the future digital classroom look like?

I think it might be even more advanced than the following setting below.

I feel that there are 2 possibilities of wherhter technology will be a success in the future.

One, it might advance so much that we do everything electronically. We might even stop travelling around to school, to work and to do our daily routines. There might be technologies developed to enable us to access anything and anywhere, without being limited by whether the place has an Internet connection or Wifi.

Second, it might turn back. We often hear that if there is always a limitation to how much we can progress. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that we might turn back to primitive ways if the problems of technology escalates in the future.

E-marketing

Why some e-commerce succeeded?

1) Far reach - Internet allows businnesses to reach not only those within the country that it is based in. People from around the world will be able to access the website as long as there is internet connection.

2) Removes element of inconvenience - Cardless ID innovations and the introduction of online payment methods greatly reduce the trouble of having to go to an ATM to make bank transfers.

3) Internet is a good marketing weapon - Even if those who see the product may not be interested in it, if they have friends who are interested in a particular product, they might help you to market the product to them.

Why some e-commerce failed?

1) Insufficient planning - Some businesses merely followed the trend of setting up online commerce in addition to their original business without much planning of how the business online should be organized and maintained.

2) Not up to date - Companies that conduct their business online should always keep it up to date and man their website on a daily basis, or even once every few hours. Not replying to emails sent or the comments posted by the public on the website has led to the failure of many online businesses.

3) Bad advertisements - Some small and private businesses do not put much effort into designing the website or they might not even have the expertise to design the website in a way which would attract customers. For example, many a time, many shopping blogs end up with photos posted everywhere and on a haphazard way on their blogs. This will actually work to the disadvantage of the business itself.

E-marketing - how to make it a success?

I would like to link e-marketing to politics in this post. Most of us would have seen how the new media(Internet, computer games, etc.) was being used in the last American presidential election. As the Internet serves to reach out to a large audience without the audience having to be at a particular place at a particular time. In this aspect, political parties can tap on e-marketing as a tool to promote their party's slogans, believes and plans should they get elected.

To make this a success, these political parties or individual candidates themselves have to encourage active comments by the public on what they are currently doing or what the public wants from them. They will then have to give a reply to the public and not just make it a monologue. In my opinion, other than public campaigns and walkabouts, this is probably the only way which the public will be able to come into contact with the candidate.

Social Networking

A relatively new social networking site: Foursquare

I came across this while using another social networking site, Twitter.

Foursquare is a location-based social networking website. This service is available for users of GPS enabled mobile devices. Users can check into the venue that at a particular point in time and choose to have their "check-ins" posted on their Twitter or Facebook accounts or both.

If a user checks into a location more than anyone else for the past 2 months, they will be crowned "Mayor" of that venue. This will continue until someone else checks into the location more than the current "mayor".

It is useful in that it allows you to find out where your friends are at a particular point of the day. I have a group of friends who wanted to give a particular friend a surprise birthday party and that friend happened to be using foursquare. So, they used foursquare to find out where she was and successfully surprised.

Some celebrities also use this social networking website as a tool by which they can interact with their fans. When they visit a certain restaurant or attraction in another country, they "check into" their location on Foursquare. This serves as a way they can indirectly communicate with their fans as their fans might comment or ask about the place.

This also leds on to my next point. Businesses can use this as a tool for marketing their product(s). For example, if a celebrity happens to visit a restaurant and enjoy himself or herself, the restaurant manager could always take this chance to request if he or she could help promote the restaurant by taking photos and posting online or request that he or she "check-into" the location on Foursquare if he or she has an account. This helps in promoting the business and would definitely bring more business.

Comparing this to Twitter, I feel that Foursquare is indeed useful in helping in marketing business more than twitter. However, I feel that this inevitably leads to a loss in privacy. If we were to "check-into" whatever venues we are at everyday, it might attract people who mean harm. Celebrities using this might also bring trouble to themselves.

Furthermore, with Foursquare, you have to "check-into" a location before you can actually post something you might want to say at a particular point in time. This means that you won't be able to post a status as and when you want just like what Twitter allows its users to do. Hence, I feel that Foursquare is rather limiting in its usage.