Technology has taken an interesting turn this decade, with many people speculating that artificial intelligence and machine learning are to be the next big waves of our great leap forward for humankind. Hearing something about a poker-playing robot that can now beat the world’s best online player, though, can be quite terrifying. Additionally, hearing about things like data collection and selling is also intimidating, so as we head for the future and advance our technology, it seems that more and more people are growing fearful of what things may come out of such progress. It can be easy to forget, then, that technology is still quite simple and helpful and has contributed to efficient, easy inventions, like the advent of online learning.
Online learning has helped people save a lot of time. Instead of meandering to some classroom where everybody is dozing off and lectures are just the regurgitation of PowerPoint slides, online learning has allowed students to stay home and learn at their own pace in an environment that makes them comfortable. It has made certain resources easier, such as checking one’s own progress or going back to notes that one may have missed, and the medical world has not been left unaffected by online learning.
Online learning has largely revolutionized the process and method of taking CEs, making it faster and more convenient. CEs have become more readily accessible, it’s become a lot easier to understand your own state’s requirements, and so on. For example, the interface on our NursingCE website includes a personalized dashboard for users so that they can keep track of what courses they’ve already completed, have a tally of their units, stay up-to-date regarding their state’s specific requirements, and more. If all of this had to be done in print, there would be so many different sheets of paper, and it would all be rather hard to keep track of.
The user interface and experience of a website like ours for NursingCE.com can also boost user’s happiness and engagement. The website looks sleek and minimalistic but is playful enough to let nurses know that we are not all about business. Before, when things were done in print or in person, most brochures, tests, and CE materials looked bland, boring, and intimidating, which must’ve made it harder for nurses to want to complete their CEs, causing the entire process to be a long drag for them.
Moreover, online learning has simplified the process of course selection. It’s a lot less overwhelming now to scroll through a list of classes, be able to click on an enticing one and read a short summary or it, and finally selecting one to take. Online databases can hold so much information, and so the potential for the size of a library of classes seems endless by today’s standards; before, when things were done in print, this would waste a lot of resources and time because things had to be specific and individualized. There was not a platform where everything was laid out for an individual to precisely and specifically pick out what education requirements they may need.
Another super important benefit of online learning is that it has greatly cut the costs of what it takes to for nurses to complete their CEs. Everything is now bundled up in a website that, for the most part, took a one-time cost to develop; online courses are made, uploaded to a website, and then ready to be used over and over again by anybody. On the other hand, print needs resources for each product that goes out, lessening monetary expense for both CE-providers and nurses completing their CEs.
Additionally, before online learning was popularized, a lot of information and class material for CEs had to be sent out in the mail, meaning that nurses would have to collect whatever they needed from the mail, fill it out in print, and then ship it back to the original company that offers such CEs. This process can be long and arduous, and shipping is often a task that people nowadays forget to handle. Though it seems simple, grabbing stamps and an envelope to send something off can actually be quite taxing. Thanks to online learning, though, CEs are so easy to complete that you can lie in bed and click through something on your laptop. CEs can also be more interactive; there are different activities that can be offered through an online platform, which is a type of flexibility that print could never offer. You can easily navigate back and forth, submit whatever you need to submit, and request your certificate automatically, instead of waiting twice the amount of time it takes now to request for and receive a certificate of completion. Because of all of these things, you can customize your own learning environment and speed instead of having other students or a professor pressure you into learning slower or quicker than you wish.
Easy, fast, and effective, — online learning has clearly helped nurses like you stay on top of stickler requirements that assist in the maintaining of your career. Because of all of online learning’s benefits, students can actually better balance their personal lives and their educational ones. Online learning has even made education less traditional and boring; in fact, it’s become so important that it’s been allotted a day to celebrate it: September 15, 2019 is recognized as this year’s official “Online Learning” Day!
Though online learning has helped nurses a lot with their continuing education, we at NursingCE want to make this process even easier. We know that nurses already have a lot to handle, and having to get renew your license every other year or so can be a huge hassle. That's why we made our online CEs as informative and as compact as possible.