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As we know, E-learning has been around for ten years or so. During that time, it has emerged from being a radical idea, the effectiveness of which was yet to be proven, to something that is widely regarded as mainstream. It is the core to numerous business plans and a service offered by most colleges and universities. Electronic learning or E-learning is a general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. E-learning is mostly associated with activities involving computers and interactive networks simultaneously. The computer does not need to be the central element of the activity or provide learning content. However, the computer and the network must hold a significant involvement in the learning activity. A definition for e-learning emerges from the parallel concept of e-mail. E-mail is typically described as the activity of transmitting "mail" with computers and networks. In the same way, e-learning refers to learning activities that involve computers and networks. (The Internet and intranets are considered networks.) E-learning does not require learning materials to be delivered by computer, but computer and networks must be involved in this type of learning.

E-learning and learning are examples of recent concepts that acquire their meanings from the related concepts of e-mail, Web, and learning. Much literature associates e-learning with Web-based learning over the Internet (e.g. Rosenberg, 2000; Driscoll, 2002; Horton, 2000). Schank (2001) refers to learning activities involving computer networks as e-learning, and stresses that e-learning is not merely distance learning. Today, e-learning mainly takes the form of online courses. From the resources distributed by MIT's Open Courseware project to the design of learning materials in Rice's Connexions project to the offerings found from colleges and universities everywhere, the course is the basic unit of organization.

How does e-learning work?

A variety of media is used to help with learning and to provide communication between learners and tutors. These include:

• traditional written materials, such as books and manuals
• television and radio broadcasts
• audio tapes and CD-ROMs
• online information
• online groups
• video conferencing
• email support

Your tutor can provide support by phone, email, online or by post. You might be able to communicate with other learners by email or website discussion groups. This helps you learn from the rest of the group and comment on each other's work. There is usually a good range of support available to help you organize your time and manage your learning.

In the era of learning technology and Educational Technology, the electronic learning is used generally to refer to the use of technology in learning or some sense of computer-based training. It is also more than On-line Learning or On-line Education which generally refer to purely web-based learning. In cases where mobile technologies are used, the term M-learning has become more common to the people in technology communities.Online language learning and teaching is multifaceted and can take many shapes. Components can be categorized in three areas:
1) Computer mediated communication (CMC),
2) presentation of authentic materials and
3) online interactive exercises.

CMC can be further broken down into asynchronous (e-mail and bulletin board) or synchronous communication (chat rooms, white board and Internet video conferencing) between two or multiple users. Different kinds of authentic materials are available on the Internet. Students can search for particular topics using search engines or sites recommended by the instructor. In addition to text and images, many Internet sites also include video and audio files. By sending students out on their own, they have access to pages created in the target culture, not by the instructor; consequently they are usually more up-to-date and culturally genuine. However, the instructor can also create a learning website, incorporating selected material, which are still authentic, but are more controlled for appropriateness in language and content.In creating online exercises, drills including fill-in-the blank, multiple choice, and matching are easiest to achieve by language teachers. There are a lot of already existing sites that allow for this kind of practice, but instructors can also learn how to create their own course specific Internet exercises, if they use a course management system like WebCT. Moreover, interactive activities and exercises can also go beyond those drills to include pair activities, problem solving, and critical thinking.Computer Mediated Communication has received a lot of attention in the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning, since it fits in well with a communicative approach to language learning. For our research we were looking for more complete uses of all three components in integrated online learning environments. However, articles about online learning in general and those pertaining to more specialized uses are nonetheless included for an overall review of the literature and practice.

E-learning is very helpful for language studies because of its advantages...

Advantages of e-learning..

The most notable advantages of e-learning are flexibility, convenience and the ability to work at your own pace. E-classes are asynchronous which allows learners to participate and complete coursework in accordance with their daily commitments. This makes an e-learning education a viable option for those that have other commitments such as family or work.

Other advantages of e-learning include the ability to communicate with fellow classmates from around the country, a greater adaptability to learner's needs, more variety in learning experience with the use of multimedia and the non-verbal presentation of teaching material. Video instruction provides visual and audio learning that can be reviewed as often as needed. For organizations with distributed and constantly changing learners (e.g. restaurant staff), e-learning has huge benefits when compared with organizing classroom training.

E-learning also has some weaknesses...

Disadvantages of e-learning include the lack of face-to-face interaction with a teacher. Critics of e-learning argue that the process is no longer "educational" in the highest philosophical sense (for example, as defined by RS Peters, a philosopher of education). Supporters of E-learning claim that this criticism is largely unfounded, as human interactions can readily be encouraged through audio or video-based web-conferencing programs, threaded discussion boards,of fact, many in K12 would support e-learning if it was not associated with the more extreme versions that attempt to cut out the directed teacher-student relationship.

The feeling of isolation experienced by distance learning students is also often cited, although discussion forums and other computer-based communication can in fact help ameliorate this and in particular can often encourage students to meet face-to-face and form self-help groups. Discussion groups can also be formed on-line. Human interaction, faculty-to-student as well as student-to-student, should be encouraged in any form.

Web and software development in particular can be expensive as can systems specifically geared for e-learning. The development of adaptive materials is also much more time-consuming than that of non-adaptive ones. Consequently, some of the cost is often forwarded to the students as online college courses tend to cost more than traditional courses. However, there are transportation cost (and time) benefits with not having to commute to and from campus.