The way we learn is changing faster than ever before. With the Internet, digital libraries and online encyclopedias it seems as if all the world’s information is at our finger tips. This makes learning new things very easy and indeed is changing the way we view knowledge and education. Even traditional schools, colleges, universities and specialty schools are now using online strategies similar to those used in corporate training.

No longer will children with illnesses or injuries be denied their schoolwork, as they can do it all online. Online education has even more uses in such things as Home-Schooling or those wishing to go back and get a degree part-time working at their pace.

As distance learning grows more popular, parents are beginning to consider home education for their children. As the youngest generation grows up online, the future of education looks more digital than ever. Completing a course online gives young students a chance to discover the advantages of distance learning. As a result, more students are prepared for the online format, and more willing to take courses online in college. An online university student can learn something one evening and put their knowledge to work the very next day.

Online educational institutions are growing in number and enrollments because they offer the working class a chance to advance in their careers, develop a higher level of personal confidence, and fulfill life-long dreams.

In the past, working adults weren’t able to further their careers because of time restraints; including, but not limited to, working overtime, business travel, and caring for families. Online education takes away those time restraints by offering a completely virtual learning experience.

The Internet is moving well beyond e-mails and e-commerce. Predictions of an Information Age are proving prophetic as the information superhighway carries more and more vehicles transporting ideas opening the door to an education that may have been denied to many. Online education has resulted in thousands of virtual classrooms that offer the possibility for accomplishment and advancement for all.

In an age where everyone and everything is stretched too thin it is refreshing to know that the Internet provides legitimate resources that allow almost anyone to learn about almost anything. You can now feel confident that life and opportunity are not passing you by. Higher education is now available to any person with the drive, the desire and a personal computer.

Whatever your choice, if you have the opportunity to take an online course, do not ignore it. Life is a long-term learning stadium where you are given the tools that other generations would have appreciated.

Harvard
Stanford
NYIT

Just a couple ideas to get you started on "the best". Certainly not easy and definitely not inexpensive but arguably "the best" out there.

It is amazing that many small and medium sized organizations still think of the Internet and the WWW as the only way Ebusiness affects them.

What many fail to recognize is that Intranets and Extranets using ‘internet protocol’ (IP) technology is perhapsthefastest and most certain way that they are likely to gain benefits from Internet technology.

First let’s just ‘teach Granny’:

Intranet: an organization’s private network of computer networks used internally

Extranet: an organization’s private network of computer networks used externally

Intranets and Extranets can create value for organisations in a number of ways:

- Decreased costs
- Improved productivity
- Improved customer service
- Improved staff satisfaction
- Better management controls and information

Decreased costs

Information is an important tool in business. Company-wide access to information can determine the success of sales, time-to-market, customer service and more. Intranets and Extranets can improve this information delivery process.

- Save time and money as users find better information faster
- Reduce operational cost through employee self-service
- Reduce print costs: instantly change, edit, update sensitive information
- Cost reduction in meeting, travel and telephone time

Improved productivity

Improving productivity with faster and more efficient processing of transactions and orders comes from a range of features and benefits;

- ‘Just in time’, easy to find information
- Available 24/365 and so reduce time & distance barriers
- Increased accuracy: personalized data for clients / customers / suppliers / partners (CCSP)
- Improved knowledge: sales support, inventory / order status, recalls, promotions
- Speed up supply chain list buying preferences and tender specifications
- Reduced purchasing/inventory costs, streamline processing, decrease space cost
- Give CCSP the ability to initiate automatic re-stocking and invoicing
- Automated processes decrease bottlenecks
- Allows users to view, print and work collaboratively on office documents (word-processed documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.).
- Improved time to market making proposals etc. available, speeding up approval

Improved customer service

Much customer service will always be dependent on face-to-face contact and technology will never replace it. However, elements of the customer relationship can improve via the use of Intranets and Extranets.

- Give CCSP better access to sales / service
- Strengthen working relationship with CCSP
- Improve customer service forward queries directly to CCSP
- Allow CCSP to view/comment work in progress
- Offer research and information to specific CCSP
- Improve tracking with CCSP
- Reduce routine account manager work

Improved staff satisfaction

Staff tend to love Intranets. The ’self-service’ concept and automating administrative processes empowers staff to manage holiday, sickness, expenses, timesheets, purchasing, surveys, room bookings, training or travel amongst others. This avoids costly and slow paper work on the administration side of a company.

In addition to this, Intranets and Extranets improve the quality of work-life for staff and deliver very effective computer based training solutions.

- Simple to support with minimal training requirements
- Puts users in control of their data
- Easy to use, just point and click
- Improved quality of life at work, reduced emails and ‘email fatigue’
- Improved productivity from ‘just in time’, easy to find information
- Reduce communication costs and reduce meetings and phone tag
- Better knowledge management via relevant sharing
- Help build a culture of sharing and collaboration
- Improves decision making
- Help organizational learning
- Shorten cycle times for developments
- Reduced cost of training via CBT, available ‘on demand’

Better management controls and information

Perhaps the greatest soft benefit is that for management by giving involvement and overview of processes, projects and teams even when absent or ‘on the road’.

- Reduces operational costs / risk sharing experience globally
- Improves message accuracy
- Reinforces central control of policy and procedure
- Reduces duplication because there need be only one owner for each piece of information
- Instant access to relevant databases such pricing, personnel
- Better, faster feedback, adaptation, correction via surveys and questionnaires

Costs

Of course there are costs to setting up Intranets and Extranets but they are very small when compared with other expenditures – starting in the low thousands can buy something really quite sophisticated that will generally have a far greater ROI than many capital expenditures.

The costs to consider are:

- Start-up capital costs such as new PCs and providing network connections, web servers and server software
- Software applications
- Design consultancy – creating a structural, navigational and graphical design Promotion: the cost of launching to your target population
- Training: the total cost, per user, of providing training
- Ongoing capital costs for upgrades
- Ongoing revenue costs Administration
- Technical
- Internet access
- Maintenance, modifications and improvements
- Ongoing training

SUMMARY

The benefits have already been noted and can be set against those costs in a formal ROI cost benefit analysis if need be, but an Intranet or Extranet is really much more like a telephone system that other expenditures.

It is a major communications improvement for the company and once there, like a telephone system, people wonder how they ever did without it.

Just ask your self, by the way, what the ROI is on you telephone system. Do you know? Does the company or anyone in it? Probably not!

Millions of children and teens are on the Internet everyday. They surf web pages, get their email and chat with their friends. Most parents believe this is harmless, except that our kids are being targeted everyday by predators on the Internet.

Let’s explore some of the characteristics of a child predator. The average child predator is male and over the age of 25. He could be considered “the guy down the street who kept to himself”. The loner type, very few friends and typically not married. A child predator most often has limited social skills, but a propensity to engage in conversation with an adolescent or child. This individual will tend to become shy with adults of his own age. He tends to seek out jobs that allow him to work around children, such as a baseball or basketball coach, Boy Scout leader, janitor or teacher at the school.

Child predators usually see nothing wrong with their behavior. Child predators come from all walks of life, some are rich, some are poor, some are educated and some are not. They usually have a sexually abusive or violent background histories. Child predators will “target” numerous children at one time. Their words are cunning and they take their time to “groom” their victims. “Grooming” is done by showering their victims with gifts, signs of affection and anything else they can, in order to build trust and a relationship with potential victims. Once trust is built, blackmail and guilt are sometimes used to get the child to succumb to their demands.

The Child Internet predator will utilize any or all of these techniques online. They will often times mask their age and state that they are around the same age as your child. They will stalk the Internet sites that most children and teens regularly visit. Hiding behind their computer screen, waiting patiently and then attacking their prey, our children.

How can you tell if your child is at risk? Your child may turn off the computer suddenly when you enter the room. Your child may be receiving gifts from others that you do not know. They may become more secretive about what they are doing online and usually spend more than an hour a day on the Internet. You may see long distance phone numbers that you do not recognize or they may receive phone calls from people that you are not familiar with. These are all signs that your child may be at risk.

As a parent, what can you do? One of the best ways to keep your child safe online is to create open dialogue with your child and to set clear rules regarding computer and Internet usage. You will also need to understand what your child is doing online. Learning more about how your child uses the Internet and whom they talk to in emails and instant message chat rooms can do this. You may also consider utilizing Internet monitoring tools to keep tabs on your child’s activity. One organization that has combined both parental monitoring tools and tools to translate the litany of instant message acronyms is Safe Computer Kids. They have recently launched their website at www.safecomputerkids.com. You can contact them at 866-846-6464 or email them at info@safecomputerkids.com.

As a counselor for more than sixteen years, working with adolescents, adults and families, I have yet to meet a sexual offender who has been completely cured with treatment and have all too often seen the devastating results of their actions.

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The Internet has broken down language barriers, country boundaries, and learning methods. Today, learning at home is not only possible but highly advisable because the World Wide Web gives students resources that otherwise are not available as fast as the time it takes when a student turns on his or her personal computer.

The era of education online means that your ability to obtain higher education is just a mouse click away. Online education is one of the best options for those who want to get a degree and work at the same time. Within the past ten years, online education and internet training has provided many people with a new incentive to learn.

Online education includes a full spectrum of possibilities starting with early childhood education and including college preparation, or complete learning programs for obtaining a college degree. Online courses open a world of possibilities to people who for any given reason were unable to attend regular school programs, or those whose actual activities and limited time, made it hard to stick to a full-time learning schedule.

Online education is spreading across the globe like a wildfire fueled by textbooks and periodic tables. Millions who previously thought that a college degree was firmly out of their reach have discovered that all it takes to attend college in today’s world are the combination of a few free hours each day and access to the Internet.

Online Education Equals Big Business
Originally conceived as a way for adults to earn a college degree later in life than usual, online education or “distance learning” has spread to the point that people of all ages are now involved. Children as young as the fourth grade level now have access to online education in many areas, using it as a supplement to or in place of traditional classes.

With Online Education Everybody Wins
Part of the appeal to online education is that it is literally good for everyone. Educators can enter a new job market in writing and implementing an online curriculum and can use this income to supplement the earnings that receive from classroom education. Students of all ages have an alternative to traditional classes in which they can learn without the interference of other students’ behavioral interruptions. Adults who may have missed out on their high school diplomas or college degrees now have the opportunity, through online education, to complete or further their studies without the scheduling problems that may have made this impossible in the past. Finally, online education offers businesses the chance to educate their workforce at a lower cost and the benefit of a generation of computer literate and more highly educated prospective employees entering the job market.

However, online education is not limited to school subjects. Demand for adult education and online courses are some of the most widely available educational resources on the Internet, intended for developing specific skills. Cooking and baking courses, mechanical reparations, interior decoration, are just a few of those quick courses available online.

Another motivation encouraging online education includes foreign languages learning, or just for broadening your culture. Online options are as many as everyone’s need; degree programs, online education courses, training certificates and more, including accredited formal education.

Online education saves time, money, and offers opportunity to those who may have never had it in the past. It may truly be the wave of the future. Helping students to succeed in both education and career aspirations, online education is fast becoming a convenient, but credible educational tool of the modern era.

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I am a resident of New Delhi, India. I have received my bachelor's degree from Delhi university, India in Computer Engineering. Now I wish to pursue my post graduation degree (masters in telecommunications) from a reputed US university. I wish to undertake the online way of studying the course from India(any city) by which i can download the lectures on PC and submit my assignments online. Regarding this I have a few question that I hope you can answer.

* Which all universities have such online education mechanism in India? I know of one, Illinois Institute of Technology. What about others?
* Besides giving GRE, do i have to give any other exams also(e.g. TOEFL etc.)?

Hoping for an early reply,
Thanks,

When I worked at Keller Graduate School we had students all over the world in their online program and they have the Master's in Telecommunications. Look at their site and give them a ring or send them an e-mail and they will call you. They have an entire office dedicated to international recruiting. Their site is www.keller.edu