Digital learning has been a hot topic since long before the year 2020. COVID-19 and the resulting widespread social distancing simply encouraged all those who didn’t use digital mediums to learn to do so; if you want to keep learning or teaching today, you have few other options.

At MoveUp, we provide actionable digital education through a simple mobile application for young adults & adults.  In this post, we refer to digital learning as learning on a digital platform where learners take classes and engage with one another and their teachers.  Let’s dive into the pros and cons of adult digital education, especially during these unprecedented times.

Pros of Digital Learning

Accessibility

For the average adult, taking the time to attend a physical class is incredibly difficult.  While juggling work, family responsibilities, managing a home and so much more, it is much easier to take a course at home on your phone, tablet, or computer and listen, read, or engage with material whenever is best for you. Now, in the age of COVID-19, millions of us cannot even safely leave our homes or engage in safe physical training, so digital is the way to go. Additionally, digital education is frequently much more affordable, even free in some cases, which makes it accessible to a wider market than its in-person counterpart.

Personalized Learning

Not everyone is interested in the same course material. Digital education provides adult students with the freedom to choose exactly what they want to learn.  Digital education courses are generally more available to students as well. In a physical training center or university, courses may be offered less frequently, or only when there is enough demand. With digital education, students can build their own personalized learning tracks based on personal and professional goals.

Accommodating to Different Learning Styles

We all learn differently. In a classroom, excellent teachers will craft lessons that incorporate activities catering to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles, but time is limited, and not all learning environments permit this type of education.  Digital education can easily be catered to the unique learning styles of each student, while also incorporating all three styles for best results. For example, MoveUp’s classes include lessons with narration for auditory or non-literate users. Those who prefer visual learning enjoy reading text and seeing pictures and graphics in their lessons. Kinesthetic learners engage with dynamic games in the app, such as matching pictures with their descriptions or solving crosswords.

Digitally Adaptive for Difficulty

AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology allows digital learning lessons & courses to be digitally adaptive, meaning the better you do on a lesson, the more difficult content you receive in the future. If a learner struggles with a specific topic, the platform may send simpler material or reinforcement questions to help with topic mastery. All learners are challenged appropriately based on their strengths and weaknesses, unlike classroom learning where a teacher can only teach one level of material at a time.

Gamification

Anyone who has used Duolingo, a popular app for learning a language, can attest to the powers of gamification.  Gamification is a concept in digital education where game design elements and principles are applied to learning material.  Instead of simply learning a new language, you are trying to win “lingots” to buy a new suit for your owl avatar by correctly completing activities.  Gamification makes learning addictive and fun for users, increasing the time users spend on the app and helping them engage and retain more information.

 A Global Mindset

Depending on the digital education, learning digitally can expand our global perspectives. Students in an online class may be from different places and cultures. The material can be expanded far beyond the knowledge of a single professor. Communication tools in digital education can facilitate the development of long-distance friendships and networking.

Cons of Digital Learning

Lack of Personal Feedback

Feedback on a digital platform may be limited to an automatic score received, or a chat message from an instructor. Some digital learning facilitates video calls or other more direct methods of feedback, but regardless, they lack personal face-to-face contact.

Socially Isolating

Many students want to feel like part of a learning community.  Learning digitally can feel isolating, especially if learners are studying at their own pace alone. To overcome this challenge, many digital platforms encourage virtual classes or cohorts for students to study at the same time.  At MoveUp, we find that discussion boards are incredibly encouraging for users and teachers alike to feel a sense of connection.

Potentially Exclusive

The number of cellphones in the world is rising at an unprecedented rate. According to Bank My Cell, 3.5 billion people today have smartphones, which is 44% of the world’s population.  However, individuals without a smartphone or digital device are excluded from most digital education. If digital learning requires data or a wifi connection, many others, even if they have smartphones, are also excluded.  Additionally, in order to properly use digital education, users must be somewhat digitally literate, meaning they understand how to do more than simply make phone calls or send basic text messages on their phone.  Continued physical and digital education is necessary to bridge the gap between the number of people with smartphones and those who are technologically literate enough to use them to learn.

Educational Quality

Given the extent of information online, learners must carefully evaluate digital education sources.  While this also applies to in-person education, it can be especially challenging to do this digitally, especially if the learner has limited technological literacy or prior education. Just because something is digital doesn’t mean it’s correct or superior to in-person training.

In conclusion, digital learning provides many new benefits and features to traditional learning methods. However, it’s not a magic bullet to topic mastery. Like physical learning, it requires careful consideration of quality, learning environment, and accessibility to achieve great results.