Education

Nowadays education has spread beyond the classroom and is now available to the masses. Due to the use of the internet we have an almost unlimited source of human knowledge with which to expand our understanding of anything and everything.

Online Revision -

Online revision websites such as BBC Bitesize, SAM Learning and Mymaths allow students to improve their understanding of their subjects and therefore boost their skills thus increasing the chances of them doing well in various exams. With all of this being available from the comfort of the student’s homes pupils are able achieve their full potential and beyond without needing to ‘splash out’ on expensive books and tutoring. The aim of these websites is to provide people with easily accessible source of information to help educate them. BBC Bitesize is a free online study support created by the BBC and provides education resources for Key Stage One, Scottish First Level, Key Stage Two, Scottish Second Level, Key Stage Three, GCSE, TGAU, Standard Grade and Higher students. These resources include passages of useful information, exercises, online tests, education videos and interactive activities. It can be accessed almost anywhere due to its multi-platform support and mobile phone access and is therefore extremely useful for last minute revision on exam facts.

Personal Use Of Online Revision:

Personally I use online revision websites a lot. When studying for my GCSE exams it was my third most frequently used technique, only being succeeded by rereading sections of my textbooks and written notes.

Online Past Exam Papers -

Most exam boards allow members of the public to download past and sample exam papers. With these students can get a grasp of what to expect in their upcoming exams and allow them to make preparations for unexpected questions and topics which need to be studied further. They are extremely helpful and are used by teachers and students alike. Exam boards which offer this include AQA (http://web.aqa.org.uk/), Edexcel (http://www.edexcel.com/Pages/Home.aspx) and more.

Wikipedia -

Wikipedia is free online encyclopaedia which contains information about pretty much everything there is to know. It is so immensely large due to its user generated content. The website allows users to upload their own articles on the site, which if good enough may be published as an official Wikipedia page. It currently has about 100,000 active contributors and in 2011 received an estimated 2.7 monthly page views from the USA alone. However it is commonly used and abused by students to take shortcuts with their homework assignments. It is now common for teachers to receive work from their classes containing large sections copied directly from Wikipedia. Unfortunately not all information on Wikipedia is accurate and the users whom publish the articles occasionally may leave their work laced with spelling errors and incorrect facts. To add to this, anyone can edit the articles and therefore destroy the accuracy of them. Therefore despite Wikipedia being a massively useful resource, it has gained a degree of infamy in places of education.