What are the biggest problems with online learning? With its many benefits, online learning also comes with some challenges. Let’s take a look at how you deal with the 8 biggest challenges.
Challenge No.1: Digital Literacy
While attending online lectures or listening to informative audio material is a simple task, a certain degree of technical background is still required.
One needs to participate in classes (submitting an assignment or participating in discussion boards) and communicate with instructors. If one does not have basic digital literacy, it will be difficult for one to get the most out of this course.
Problem No.2: Poor time management and procrastination
Flexibility and convenience are the two main reasons why a student chooses an online course. However, knowing that lectures can be taken at any time can lead to procrastination. You may start wasting time on useless websites.
Problem No.3: Monotony
Online learning can be boring. You don’t have classmates or a teacher to talk to. All you have are long texts and video lectures to go through.
Even if the online format involves interesting content, such as infographics and videos, things can still become monotonous. Eventually, students may lose interest and drop out.
Problem No.4: Superficial knowledge
Many students never learn in courses how to look for solutions to problems. They go for the knowledge that will make professionals out of them, but get a vague and sometimes wrong idea of the profession. There is no coherence between the trainers, issues obvious to them and not obvious to the audience are ignored because they seem trivial, and the content is not worked through before the class.
Problem No.5: Promising unbelievable results
You will never find clauses on scammers’ pages stating that it will take a lot of work, effort and time, training, and hard work to achieve mastery. Their solutions will always be simple, painless, and effortless – that’s how they attract simpletons. If you are not a simpleton, be wary of these promises.
Problem No.6: Vague understanding of course content
There are times when a training product is poorly done: lessons are written down at home in front of a wardrobe wall, the teacher can’t string two words together, advice is generic, there is no practice. It is a shame to show such a product. Understanding this, the author simply does not show it. Instead of demonstrating the product, there are general words and pictures of happy people.
Sometimes, the product itself is not available at all, or it will be made as you go along: for example, the expert will hold webinars and at the same time record them and give access to the recordings. This is where you can’t guess: some brilliant speakers improvise brilliantly as they go along, and there are those who are brilliant only at selling their courses. You have to look for the person’s other webinars and performances on YouTube and see if you find them interesting.
Problem No.7 The start of training keeps getting pushed back
The start date for courses you have already paid for may be pushed back. Usually with the wording “until a group is assembled”, but no one has been assembling a group for weeks, months. Scammers wait for the student to change his/her mind during this period. Then the student refuses to take the course voluntarily and pays a contractual penalty.
If a group does fill up, another trick is set in motion. During a conversation with you, the manager will find out the convenient time for classes and then assign you to a group with a completely different timetable. Proving your point is unlikely to work: the contract will not be any obligation on the part of the training center some are regarding the convenient time of classes. If you don’t like it, cancel it. Again, pay a forfeit.
Problem No. 8 Unexpected expenses for getting a diploma
Scammers often use the following scheme. It seems that everything was given to you – and access to webinars, and checked your homework. And now you have reached the end of training. You want a confirmation of your studies – pay for a certificate or diploma. Oops! It turns out that its issuance was not included in the price, but it was not advertised anywhere. Sometimes the price of the “diploma” is as much as a third of the cost of the course itself.
How to know if you are being cheated
Pay close attention to the course title. “Become a Millionaire in a Week” is definitely a scam. There are no miracles.
The reputation of the course presenter is very important. Believe me, if the author creates really useful materials, it does not go unnoticed. His social media pages should have a lot of subscribers and live comments on his posts. He should have a YouTube channel with useful videos and a large number of views below them.
The course should not be like any other, it should have some author’s methodology, an author’s trick. Most likely, this is the kind of product that is personally made, not assembled from bits and pieces from other courses.