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Education is our key to success. True, and we have heard this over and over again from our senior peers, friends, family and of course, teachers. But discussions in the class or seminar halls can get real boring.

And this boredom is something that everyone has to go through. But a very senior professor at the University of California, Berkley, who has been teaching anatomy for the past five decades, came up with a very innovative idea.

And the idea is such that most of her classes on anatomy have been recorded on tape and then uploaded onto the Internet. Now her students, and the aspiring students who want to be in her class but cannot get due to crowding, can watch and learn from these videos. It is practically the virtual extension of her.

In the recent past, Internet has taken over our lives in every possible way. It is important for us to use the net for every aspect of our day-to-day life as well. So why not education? Most of us look for the simplest of things online. If we need information on a particular subject, we look for matter on Wikipedia or simply Google it.

And it is only recently that the prestigious M.I.T too started posting their course material online through opencourseware. This means students in M.I.T can access these lessons from anywhere they are as long as they are connected. Now people have definitely questioned this method, like they do for every new thing.

Is it good enough? Well, the universities in question believe that spreading knowledge is their main priority and if it can be done so through this method, then why not? And the quality of these course materials are the same that is available to the students attending the classes. And since this process has been put in practice, the courseware has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

Internet has been around for quite sometime now and such practices have been implemented since a long time by the students. Harvard has introductory videos online of professors who will be taking classes and students who are new are urged to view them so that they can be acquainted with the professors.

Studying online has benefitted many. Students have excelled in their research techniques. It is easier for them to access research material instead of going through scores of books in the library. Many professors are okay with email home works too. Class presentations’ have become interactive as the teachers now prepare power point presentation with audio to explain many important issues. The visuals always help in engaging the students faster.  

Students too, give presentations for their classes for their project work. In fact it has been seen that many adolescents who have problems with mingling with students in class and have confidence issues, have overcome their fears by making use of the Web. 2.0 technologies.

Therefore, going online for studies is soon becoming a norm. However, nothing will ever replace the classroom studies but it does take the boring part of chalk and board studying pattern.