I want to study online. Does this even work?

Online education is booming: last year, approximately a million Russians took courses on Russian and foreign platforms. According to experts, in the next couple of years the market for online courses will continue to grow, primarily in the field of additional professional education.

This is a myth. According to research , according to most indicators, online education is not much inferior in quality to traditional education. 77% of teachers at American universities included in world rankings consider online education to be an equivalent (and in some cases, preferable) alternative to traditional education. In addition, in some universities today you can get a degree (most often a master’s) online. Certain disciplines, such as the basics of SMM or basic programming skills, are both easier and cheaper to learn on the Internet. In fact, the effectiveness of the course largely depends on the listener: remote education requires greater composure and self-control. Therefore, before taking the course, it is worth clearly articulating exactly why you need it.

It succeeds, but not everyone does, and this is the main problem of online courses. According to statistics , only 15% of users listen to the course to the end. Therefore, student motivation is especially important in online education. There are several ways to improve your academic performance. Firstly, a course that is aimed at development and career growth will help you to study more willingly. If you want to achieve exactly this, pay attention to application programs related to your professional activity (for example, basic accounting or sales techniques). Secondly, when choosing an online course, you need to take into account your basic skills and interests: it is unlikely that you will be able to master robotics if you do not love and do not understand programming. Thirdly, to maintain interest in classes, connect your hobbies with the topics of online courses. For example, if you are taking a programming course and love TV series, choose a show where programmers are the main characters.

Feedback from a teacher is really important, but not for everyone. According to statistics , only 15% of online course participants need it. However, some learning resources offer online seminars, workshops, and training sessions where students can discuss the material with a teacher.

The good thing about online courses is that you can tailor them to suit your workload. On average, one course takes three to four hours of intensive work per week. At the same time, some courses only require listening to lectures, in others homework is added to the lectures, and in others you will also have to take exams. Choose which mode and load will fit into your schedule. The main advantage of online education is that you can study anywhere and anytime. It is possible to listen to lectures and take tests even on the way from work - in transport; almost all online learning platforms work on mobile devices.

Yes, but it all depends on the course. Some involve control on the part of the teacher, others are designed for student self-discipline. For example, after watching public lectures from a famous university on YouTube, no one will offer you a test to see how well you have learned the material. At best, you can find the PDF file with the exam task yourself. Other courses offer interactive quizzes as you move from topic to topic. And at the end of some, you even need to pass a full-fledged exam, after which you will be issued a certificate confirming successful training.

Not all. There are lectures with translation or in Russian. Many courses have subtitles, including Russian. Also, Russian universities are actively developing and promoting their own courses, including eight leading universities in Russia - Moscow State University , St. Petersburg Polytechnic University , St. Petersburg State University, NUST MISIS , National Research University Higher School of Economics , MIPT , UrFU and ITMO .

Such a resource is being developed by ITMO University as part of the project “Modern Digital Educational Environment in the Russian Federation” ( “STES in the Russian Federation” ), together with which we have prepared our cards. It is planned that by 2020, 3.5 thousand online courses created by Russian universities, educational institutions and commercial structures will appear on this site. These will be courses not only for students and schoolchildren, but generally for everyone. The goal of the project is to change attitudes towards online education in Russia and show potential students, especially from the regions, how useful it can be, including in their careers.

With the help of online courses, you can improve your skills and learn new professions, and this is a direct path to career growth. In addition, on the website “SCOS in the Russian Federation” it will be possible not only to take various online courses, but also to receive confirmation of the acquired knowledge - and all in a “one window” mode. Each user of the site will have his own digital portfolio: it will contain information about the courses taken and learning results. The listener can attach a link to this page to his resume and send it to potential employers.

You can rely on ratings. Thus, on a “one-stop shop” website, all courses are evaluated first by experts and then by users. On the page of each course you can see reviews from students and employers, see marks on examinations and current statistics on how many people took the course and with what result.

Yes, there is such a problem. To solve this problem, regional competence centers have appeared within the framework of the “SCES in the Russian Federation”. They will work at the largest universities in the country and retrain teachers. Training will take place in the format of online courses. It is already known that such online courses will be offered by the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (Ural Federal University). Teachers will be taught how to design and create online courses, as well as use them in their work. It is planned that as a result of this campaign, 10 thousand teachers and experts will receive new skills - they will be the main popularizers of online education in the regions.