The most significant trends in online learning.

Topic 5: What do you feel are the most significant trends in online learning? Why are
these important?
 
According to Pelvia et al (2018), The number of people enrolled in online courses has been growing 14 years in a row. They also said that the number of face-to-face only students had been declining. This is important because it shows Online Education is getting stronger and therefore where we should focus our attention.
What I am seeing is people are creating blogs, podcasts, and online courses on topics they have talent in and, giving them away to people free. They get the benefits of an audience that might buy something later and that also creates a network that knows them. This is important because it puts a lot of useful information available online for free greatly reducing barriers for education in formal and personal study.
A trend I’m seeing most significant right now is that students that have the time or location restraints are joining online classes that would not have been able to otherwise.  For me it allows me to study from the comfort of home and take care of my child while fulfilling my needs and interests in education. The design of the courses online and the platforms are getting sufficiently organized and strong enough to support student learning. That is why I joined Liberty University because I saw that it was sufficiently ready for supporting my professional learning.
In augmented reality, you can see virtual objects for learning like the human brain. An example is “the JigSpace app [which] features a variety of virtual objects that can be overlapped and viewed from different angles. As students move around the object, they see different views” (Siegle, 2019). This is very important and helpful to teach students about complex objects, especially in engineering, biology, and Chimistry.
Simonson et al (2015) briefly describe how “more than half of students not are being honest on their homework at some point and that some companies have seen this as an opportunity to sell anti-plagiarism software to help detect them” (p. 160).  This is important because it will become more transparent who can be trusted professionally and if people get caught for not being honest then they will be forced to do their own work to continue their development.  

 
References
 
Siegle, D. (2019). Seeing Is Believing: Using virtual and augmented reality to enhance student learning. Gifted Child Today, 42(1), 46-52. doi: 10.1177/1076217518804854
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2015). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. (6th ed.) Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Palvia, S., Aeron, P., Gupta, P., Mahapatra, D., Parida, R., Rosner, R., & Sindhi, S. (2018). Online Education: Worldwide Status, Challenges, Trends, and Implications. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 21(4), 233-241. doi:10.1080/1097198x.2018.1542262