Beyond The Convenience And Flexibility Of Taking Dental Courses Online

By Author: Karen McDonagh
Total Articles: 75
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The first advantage that online education programs will present to potential students is that they are convenient and flexible. They are convenient because of the easy accessibility through devices or gadgets that allow a person to connect to the internet. With the spread of computers and internet technology in almost all countries, it is assumed that a big percent of the population can have access to online education. This form of education is promoted to be flexible because students are in control of the time when and location where they want to engage in learning. This is attractive to persons who are balancing home, work, and studies because they can allocate the hours of their day for each important aspect. Convenience and flexibility are probably the first benefits that anyone will mention when talking about online education.

These two unquestionable advantages are also applicable for students and practitioners who wish to take dental courses online. A dental student looking for a wider range of information sources can conveniently go online between lecture hours or after school hours to research through ...
... credible dental education providers, instead of relying solely on printed journals in the library. A dental practitioner looking to fulfill his or her required CPD (Continuing Professional Development) hours have, because of the flexibility as to when and where to access online courses, the ability to attain these required hours without compromising time for income-generating work. The dental profession surely benefits from the convenience and flexibility of such method of study.

Beyond this, however, another advantage of taking dental courses online is that the student has ready access to other information sources on the internet. With the internet being a melting pot of data – research, scientific papers, journal entries, experiment results, surveys, etc – from all over the world, a student can open many doors of knowledge with one click of a button. All information therefore becomes easily verifiable. If there is doubt about an article on oral health that one may have read, it is easy to find other articles related to it without having to travel to a dental school library or waiting for a journal print out. This makes learning and understanding the subject matter quicker, which is beneficial for the student.

Currently, there is a trend that more dental experts are joining the online education programs because surveys and studies have shown an increase in the demand for them. This provides another advantage to taking dental courses online in the form of students from anywhere in the world having access to the knowledge and skills that these dental experts, also from anywhere in the world, have to share. It has been found that a traditional classroom setting limits some students because of an apprehension to ask questions face-to-face or among the physical presence of other students. The venue of online chat rooms, emails or discussion pages – accessed at the comfort of one’s home or chosen study area – may remove these inhibitions and effectively allow students to freely ask questions or voice out opinions. This assures a better understanding of subject matters through the proper guidance of experts.

Another advantage that people are not quick to realize is that by taking online education courses, the student develops a stricter discipline that cannot be universally acquired. Discipline is defined as a training that brings out a behavior of moral or mental improvement. The flexibility and convenience of online study may sometimes attract persons to lax or be negligent of their duties to finish a course. Therefore, students who choose to take online dental courses develop a strict discipline in themselves through the process of completing the course within acceptable time. In the practice of dentistry, having discipline is a valued trait because a dental practitioner should be someone whose knowledge and skill are respected by others due to the expectation to provide quality oral health care to the public.

Taking dental courses online is definitely convenient for a student or practitioner who needs flexibility in study hours, but there is more to this study method than what is commonly talked about. Through online education, a person has access to information provided by experts in the dental field, which are easily verifiable through further internet research. The doors to education and knowledge are wide open for anyone with the discipline to adventure into an online course of study.

Karen McDonagh is a proud contributing author and write articles on several subjects including Dental CPD. To get more information please go to Courses for Dental Studies in Australia .