Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, at present, most schools in the world use online teaching mode, and students have also started the days of online learning. According to the definition given by ContinuingStudies@UVic, online learning is when you take courses online instead of in a physical classroom, thus, students can get the wanted education from anywhere in the world on a schedule that suits their life. As an international student who left Canada in July last year, I have experienced online learning for more than a year, and in the EDCI337 course last semester, I have connected and thought about online learning by understanding multimedia learning. And after reading this week’s reading materials, I think I may have a deeper understanding of online learning. Now, I will summarize my perception from several aspects.

First, according to the situation predicted by Noam (1995), the ultimate providers of an electronic curriculum will be professional business companies instead of universities, textbooks and other study materials that are most suitable for online learning will be provided by the publishers. This is indeed a fairly accurate prediction. During my nearly year and a half of online learning, I have used electronic curriculum by no less than 3 publishers, such as Pearson, Macmillan, TopHat, etc. The e-textbooks and other online functions (such as exercises, notebooks, etc.) customized by these publishers for the courses have actually improved my online learning efficiency, and can also play a role in assisting of managing time.

Second, in 2002, Driscoll identified 4 main forms of online learning, one of them is a blend of different forms of media or technology, also can be regarded as multimedia learning, what I studied in EDCI337. Multimedia learning theories are widely used in online learning. Based on multimedia learning, professors and students can create many kinds of learning objects such as infographics, these can help students recognize the key information in the course materials more quickly, and the interaction between teachers and students on the platform can also supplement the course learning process in a timely manner. But I think this may have some privacy risks. For example, if the teacher asks students to post their blog addresses and aggregate them on a publicly visible platform, or let students annotate on the website non-anonymously, students’ personal information such as student’s email address and IP address may be at risk of leakage.

Finally, discuss about the cost of online learning. There are also people who oppose online learning. Their basis mainly comes from the infringement of intellectual property rights by open educational resources and the high expenditure of online education. The high cost brought by Internet teaching is in many ways, for example, the fixed internet fees and fees for uploading video meetings recordings of some courses, but with the development of science and technology, its reuse potential and appreciation potential cannot be ignored. Because online learning has no time difference and environmental restrictions, so it’s very convenient for international students. Furthermore, both students and teachers can arrange their own study time more freely, and use the remaining time to rest or do part-time jobs. By the way, people can also interact with more people in the learning process from the Internet, in summary, the future development potential of online learning is very large. But in the future, how to weigh online learning and the ability to communicate with people in reality is a topic I want to pay attention to and get answers, because if human communication is really completely dominated by the Internet, how much will real life be affected?