Three on-line learning Methodologies

Providing on-line learning services is not simply applying interactive technology to traditional course offerings. It requires sufficient understanding of how learners learn and the reorganisation of the content so that a particular student can effectively meet the course objectives. In addition, the classroom-based model i.e. the model of a group of people starting at the same time, studying the same materials at the same pace and ending at scheduled time has become less efficient and flexible than alternative educational models such as topic-based models. These are based on the idea that learning should not be paced so much by the teacher as it is the student’s own capacity to acquire the material. The topic selection for an individual’s education is based on his/her needs, not on a pre-selected curriculum.
More specifically methodologies of on-line learning through the Internet include:

	Access to learning resources (courses, complementary material, references, tests, etc.) for self-paced learning (self-learning and/or supported self-learning),
	On-line communication with tutors on scheduled time for delivery of lectures, practice, collaboration (virtual classroom),
	Communication and collaboration between trainees to reinforce the knowledge development through interaction among peers (collaborative learning).

What underlies the aforementioned methodologies is that the learner becomes the centre of the learning process, i.e. a shift from a tutor-centred model to a learner-centred model of learning. All of them are incompatible with modes of instruction, which assume that the tutor is the information provider and the learner a passive recipient.