E-learning, Reading, and Writing Skills in Higher Education

This essay delves into the realm of e-learning, exploring its advantages such as cost-effectiveness, accessibility, and flexibility, while also acknowledging its drawbacks like the potential for technical issues and the need for self-discipline. The author shares their personal experience with e-learning through Kolb's learning cycle, highlighting the benefits and challenges encountered. Furthermore, the essay provides actionable strategies for enhancing reading abilities, including vocabulary building, active questioning, and employing techniques like chunking and skimming. It also discusses methods to improve writing quality, emphasizing the importance of practice, clarity, and organization. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of continuous learning and the application of these skills in both academic and professional contexts. The essay emphasizes the importance of e-learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning environments.

STUDY SKILLS FOR
HIGHER EDUCATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Advantages and disadvantages of e-learning...............................................................................3
Experience of e-learning..............................................................................................................4
Strategies towards improving reading ability..............................................................................5
Strategies for improving writing quality of projects....................................................................8
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
E-learning refers to delivering education and imparting training with the help of digital or
electronic devices. It involves and made possible through components such as computers and
internet system (Al-Azawei, Parslow and Lundqvist, 2017). It enables teachers and trainers in
delivering skills and knowledge in a digitalized form. Such system of imparting education has
become common with the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic. The present essay is based on e-
learning, where its various advantages and challenges will be discussed along with its importance
realized through the online conduction of learning programmes in pandemic times. Then the
second part of this essay will be based on the discussion of various strategies that can be adopted
by students in order to improvise their ability to read and write projects in a more qualitative
manner. And at last some suggestions to improve reading and writing skills will be mentioned
that can help students in enhancing these skills.
MAIN BODY
Advantages and disadvantages of e-learning
E- learning also known as electronic learning is the method of transferring education and
training through internet connected devices such as mobile phones, computers and tablets. It is
form of online education with the help of information technology. It has become popular and
widely used by schools and training centres with the rise of pandemic COVID-19. But as every
coin have two aspects, the same way e-learning has both pros and cons (Al-Fraihat, Joy and
Sinclair, 2020). Firstly, there are many advantages of e-learning which can never be neglected at
all. Efficiency and effectiveness in terms of costs is a major advantage of e-learning. There is no
need to establish physical buildings and also there is no need to incur cost related to travelling to
schools and institutions for availing education and training. The videos so recorded and shared
can be accessed easily anytime and anywhere without incurring any additional cost. Through this
system of delivering education, it becomes possible to taught very large number of students at
the same time which cannot be possible with the traditional form of class teaching due to
insufficient space (Al-Rahmi and et. al., 2019). Thus, e-learning is always regarded as an
efficient and affordable form of education system. The study material of online learning can also
be accessed many times as per the student’s requirements. The another advantage of learning
digitally is rare chances of absenteeism, where students are able to attend their classes with the
comfort of their homes. This enables those students also who are not able to move due to

physical sickness and are required to maintain social distance due to the prevailing disease like
COVID-19 (Salloum and Shaalan, 2018,). Due to this facility of maintaining social distance
while obtaining education, e-learning has acquired wide popularity in the COVID-19 times.
Many schools across the globe has adopted e-learning in their system of imparting knowledge
and conducting teaching programmes, when the pandemic emerged. The third advantage of e-
learning is providing access to online sessions to students anywhere in the world without any
geographical limitations.
There are many limitations of e-learning system which can never be ignored as it made
the system quite less attractive (Hayashi and et.al., 2020). First of all, e-learning may not prove
to be appropriate alternative for all. All have different way of learning like visual, face to face
interactions and auditory form, where e-learning requires student to sit in front of computers and
mobile phones, in order to attend the sessions, may not prove to be appropriate for all students
with different habits of learning. Also, students might feel boredom while continuously attending
virtual lectures for long time, as there is no sense of face to face communication between
teachers and students. Even teachers found it difficult to make their sessions attractive and
interactive, so that children can understand the subject matter more easily. Many times it has
been noticed that the internet connectivity gets break, which results in discontinuity of learning
and students lose out their important sessions. Children having phobia with technological
appliances may found it impossible to adapt to e-learning (Hammouri and Abu-Shanab, 2018).
The third drawback of online learning is its demand of technical knowledge from teacher's side,
as there always seen that teachers need to update their technical skills in order to conduct their
online sessions without getting failed.
In this way e-learning has many pros and cons, but no one denies the fact that it has
helped out schools and colleges in a very impressive manner when the crisis of COVID-19
emerged.
Experience of e-learning
Everyone undertakes e-learning every now and again in their life for accomplishing their goals of
learning and enhancing skills, when it becomes impossible to have physical learning. I have also
experience virtual learning when due to COVID and lock down it becomes impossible for me go
out and attend my classes. Here I will share my experience of e-learning through Kolb's learning
cycle. This model allows sharing real world experience of new learning in model form given by

Kolb, where people used to undertake new learning experiment and state their experience in four
stages of learning cycle as below;
Concrete experience: It was my first experience of learning through electronic devices. E-
learning allows me to attend my sessions from the comfort of my home along with maintaining
social distance and ensuring health safety.
Reflective observation: e-learning any ways is free from great limitation but it is not that
attractive system for elderly and technologically unsound people. Despite its advantages, the
major obstacle I usually came across is technical issues like poor internet connections and
electricity failure, which act as a disturbing element in attending virtual sessions. But in the times
of pandemic, e-learning proves to be very helpful and supported me in continuing my classes
without any discrepancies.
Abstract conceptualization: e-learning is a creative learning and best suited to those who are
having converging and assimilating learning styles. I also have habits of learning alone and can
learn well by watching and thinking. So, such form of online learning has provided me with
many benefits. I regularly attend my online sessions and will always look for such opportunity of
learning online in the future.
Active experimentation: At last, I will conclude my experience by stating that online learning has
many benefits which cannot be availed through traditional physical learning, but it requires high
level of technical knowledge both from teachers and student's side, as this makes the process of
learning and teaching much easier.
Strategies towards improving reading ability
Reading ability requires interpreting and understanding the text correctly by extracting
out meaning of what authors and writers want to say, while reading any articles and reports in
order to avoid any repetitions and misunderstandings (Roehling and et.al., 2017). The ability to
read well can be possible through enhancing vocabulary knowledge. The knowledge of
vocabulary helps in interpreting the language used in the text in an appropriate manner.
The reason behind improving reading skills is that it helps in both personal and
professional life and make reading quite enjoyable and understandable. By improving ability to
read, one can analyse documents and communications that takes place in a written form at their
workplace (Ardhian and et.al., 2020). When reading skills are good, then it will we helpful in
improving writing skills.

There are various strategies which can be incorporated in an individual's behaviour in
order to improvise their reading ability. It is being said that, “Practice makes a man perfect”,
which means the more one practices, the more improvement can be seen in their
understandability of the text.
First of all, one can work upon its vocabulary which plays an important role in
interpreting what is the meaning of words involved in the text. It helps in improving reading
ability in a better way. For improving vocabulary there are many quizzes available online which
can be undertaken to examine and improve understanding of vocabulary (Anwar, 2020). By
using flashcards and making out of events when one can use new words that has been added to
their vocabulary both in oral and written communication. Also, by making habits of reading
novels and newspapers on a continuous basis, whereby guessing the meaning of complex words
and sentences and preparing the list of these words in order to find out the meaning from the
dictionary can upgrade one’s vocabulary. Another way to improve reading is to create questions
which can help in engaging yourself in the text. This enables overall understanding of the text
through investigating themes. Questions can be generated on various aspects like, what type of
relationship has been formed by author between each character of the text. Specific questions
help in gaining useful insights about the text and understanding it in a more precise manner,
which accordingly improves overall reading ability.
Highlighting text while reading is considered to be a good habit and also adding notes on
every page for valuable information like any concept or words read for the first time. This is a
very common and popular strategy towards improving reading skills which makes reading more
focused and understandable.
It is always advisable while reading to create personal connectivity with the text, which is
a common concept in psychology, known as a context dependent theory. When one read by
creating such personal connectivity, then it helps them in remembering that text for a long
duration. And ability to remember things for long must contributed towards improving reading
abilities. One can also cite events when the particular text is related to that event, because it is
beneficial in the sense that one can easily memorise the text just by reminding themselves of the
cited event.
Chunking is a technique of grouping words, that is just four to five words, from a huge
sentence which helps an individual in improving their reading comprehension. Also, students can

improve their reading skills by reading text aloud, this habit of loud reading improves skills of
information processing as the focus on the text so read can be strengthened.
Setting reading goals is another way to improve reading skills and abilities. It is regularly
suggested by teachers, professors and experts in the field of reading that keeping regular habits
of reading novels, non-fiction text, stories and poetries by setting daily targets of content to be
read, is very helpful in improving reading ability. It is generally seen that when the text with long
paragraphs with difficult words appears, it leads to losing interests in the text. But this problem
can be resolved by breaking huge paragraph into small portions or chunks, so that the interest
can be kept unaffected. Also, difficult words can be replaced with similar and familiar words to
be able to learn new words and accordingly vocabulary can also be enhanced.
Opportunity of have choice in reading offers a good deal of improvement in reading
skills. Choices available in reading develops an interests in students towards extending the length
of the reading content.
Adoption of practice of skimming is also one of the best mode of raising reading ability
of an individual. As per this technique, learner will instead of going into deep learning will read
the entire text from above. This means that reading important information regarding text instead
of reading the entire detailed text (Fauzi and Raya, 2018). This is one of the best method which
will raise ability of learning along with understanding. This, is also a time saving technique
which saves time of learner but applicability of this technique is limited only in reading informal
information.
Apart from skimming, scanning is also considered as a good practice but it is somewhat
different from skimming technique. Under scanning method learner will have to scan the entire
text thoroughly and on the basis of that scanned data they have to interpret accordingly (Deveci,
2018). It is different from skimming because scanning involves reading of entire data and on the
basis of that reading making interpretation.
In addition to skimming and scanning, note taking is also an important technique which
enables the learner to recall and recollect the read out information. As per this technique learner
will make notes by reading different information from different sources. This means that while
reading information from different sources, learner will prepare notes. And whenever they want
to recall it then those prepared notes will play an important role. Thus, this technique along with
raising ability of reading also helps a learner to raise its understanding level.

Strategies for improving writing quality of projects
Summarizing:
It is one of the best method or improving the quality of writing in projects. It is also a
method by which detailed information of the project will be converted into shorter and
meaningful manner. Under the strategy of summarizing the detailed information or text will be
converted into summary form. This summarized form will include the entire meaning of the text.
This is also considered as a time saving technique which enables the learner to save time in
reading long text and able to interpret the meaning of the text from the short and summarize form
(Lyon, 2017). This, strategy along with raising quality of writing also enhance the understanding
level of the learner. Thus, it would be right to said that this technique in addition to enhancing
writing quality, also improves analytical ability of learner.
Editing:
It is one of the best and effective mode of raising quality of writing project. Editing
enables a writer to rewrite or edit its wrong information or written information. This will
ultimately raise the quality of writing. This is because editing enable to make correction along
with replacing right information or facts and figures (Barroga and Mitoma, 2019). Through the
process of editing, a writer will be able to raise the level of writing along with its actual meaning
and idea.
Think earlier than write:
This is one of the best principle for raising quality of writing. If writer thinks before
initiating or executing their project then this will leads to raising quality of their written project.
Involvement of thinking before any project will raise its meaning too. Since, it a general
phenomenon that everybody likes to read such articles or task which contains a thoughtful
meaning behind it. So implementing this principle will lead to raising quality of writing along
with raising its meaningfulness.
Practising:
It is also a common method or strategy which is being used for improving writing quality
of project. As it is a common fact that practice makes a man perfect so by adopting and
implementing this strategy any learner can raise quality of its project. Practising also helps in
raising speed of writing along with its quality.

Be precise and to the point:
Any project or written material will be interesting only when it will be precise and to the
point. For that writer have to adopt the practice of cutting unnecessary words and try to deliver
the message of the text in short and simple manner. Along with précising, writer also have to be
careful that instead of writing long sentences and unnecessary information, they have to adopt
the practice of to the point. This means that while writing it is very important that the actual
meaning of the text should be to the point of article instead of long sentences or writing at the
end. This principle will not only help the writer in improving writing habit but it also raises
quality of project.
Develop the habit of reading other articles:
By reading other's articles or text, learner will be able to enhance their level of writing.
This means that while reading others articles or text, individuals would being able to identify
their mistakes and accordingly implement that in their writing practices. This habit has dual
advantage in the form of raising quality or meaning of the text.
Use simple words:
Adopting the practice of using simple words instead of complex words will also
considered as a good technique of raising writing quality of project. Using of complex or
difficult word will raise the complexity of the project along with raises situation of difficult or
wrong understanding. So, implementing the practice of using simple word will make
understanding of the project easy along with enhancing its quality. This practice also helps in
preventing wrong interpretation of message of text.
Using of phrases:
Using of phrases will helps in raising quality of writing. Phrases make the writing more
improved in terms of quality and its meaning. Appropriate use of phrases also helps the learners
to enhance their level of knowledge along with enhancing their writing quality.
Sequencing:
It refers to writing articles in a defined sequence. This is an important technique which is
used to raise the quality of writing. Sequencing can also be defined as writing in a sequel form
starting from introduction, followed by main body and at the end drafting conclusion. It is also to
be noted that introduction part will be short and determine the outline of project. Main body will
discuss the entire details about the project (McGonigle‐Chalmers and Kusel, 2019). While,

conclusion part will always be in a summarized form where entire meaning of the project will be
discussed. This is one of the best technique that can be used by learner in order to raise the
quality of writing project.
Conclusion:
From the above report it is concluded that e-learning is one of the recent trend of learning
the concepts. This technique has many advantages in the form of raising level of understanding
or saving of time but at the same time it also dealt with many disadvantages which includes
adverse health effects, effect over eyes and many more. It is also being understood that
experience regarding e-learning of students usually seems good because it helps them to
understand the topic with greater details along with making clarification regarding their doubts
and problems. It is also being analysed that reading and writing also plays a major role in a
learner's life. For raising reading and writing quality learners can adopt various practices
including skimming, scanning, summarizing, editing and various others which will helps them in
enhancing their quality of writing along with raising their habit of reading.

REFERENCES
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diffusion theory: An empirical investigation on students’ intention to use E-learning
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Skill. Anglophile Journal, 1(1), pp.21-28.
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Reading Skills for Early Grade Students in Elementary School. International Journal of
Instruction, 13(2), pp.107-118.
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developing university-based editing system and writing programs. Journal of Korean
medical science.34(1).
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