Preschool
Various forms of electronic media can be a feature of preschool life. Although parents report a positive experience, the impact of such use has not been systematically assessed.
The age when a given child might start using a particular technology such as a cellphone or computer might depend on matching a technological resource to the recipient's developmental capabilities, such as the age-anticipated stages labeled by Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget. Parameters, such as age-appropriateness, coherence with sought-after values, and concurrent entertainment and educational aspects, have been suggested for choosing media.
At the preschool level, technology can be introduced in several ways. At the most basic is the use of computers, tablets, and audio and video resources in classrooms. Additionally, there are many resources available for parents and educators to introduce technology to young children or to use technology to augment lessons and enhance learning. Some options that are age-appropriate are video- or audio- recording of their creations, introducing them to the use of the internet through browsing age-appropriate websites, providing assistive technology to allow differently-abled children to participate with the rest of their peers, educational apps, electronic books, and educational videos. There are many free and paid educational website and apps that are directly targeting the educational needs of preschool children. These include Starfall, ABC mouse, PBS Kids Video, Teachme, and Montessori crosswords. Educational technology in the form of electronic books offer preschool children the option to store and retrieve several books on one device, thus bringing together the traditional action of reading along with the use of educational technology. Educational technology is also thought to improve hand-eye coordination, language skills, visual attention and motivation to complete educational tasks, and allows children to experience things they otherwise wouldn't. There are several keys to making the most educational use out of introducing technology at the preschool level: technology must be used appropriately, should allow access to learning opportunities, should include the interaction of parents and other adults with the preschool children, and should be developmentally appropriate. Allowing access to learning opportunities especially for allowing disabled children to have access to learning opportunities, giving bilingual children the opportunity to communicate and learn in more than one language, bringing in more information about STEM subjects, and bringing in images of diversity that may be lacking in the child's immediate environment.
Primary and secondary
E-learning is utilized by public K-12 schools in the United States as well as private schools. Some e-learning environments take place in a traditional classroom, others allow students to attend classes from home or other locations. There are several states that are utilizing virtual school platforms for e-learning across the country that continue to increase. Virtual school enables students to log into synchronous learning or asynchronous learning courses anywhere there is an internet connection.
E-learning is increasingly being utilized by students who may not want to go to traditional brick and mortar schools due to severe allergies or other medical issues, fear of school violence and school bullying and students whose parents would like to homeschool but do not feel qualified. Online schools create a haven for students to receive a quality education while almost completely avoiding these common problems. Online charter schools also often are not limited by location, income level or class size in the way brick and mortar charter schools are.
E-learning also has been rising as a supplement to the traditional classroom. Students with special talents or interests outside of the available curricula use e-learning to advance their skills or exceed grade restrictions. Some online institutions connect students with instructors via web conference technology to form a digital classroom.
National private schools are also available online. These provide the benefits of e-learning to students in states where charter online schools are not available. They also may allow students greater flexibility and exemption from state testing. Some of these schools are available at the high school level and offer college prep courses to students.
Virtual education in K-12 schooling often refers to virtual schools, and in higher education to virtual universities. Virtual schools are "cybercharter schools" with innovative administrative models and course delivery technology.
Education technology also seems to be an interesting method of engaging gifted youths that are under-stimulated in their current educational program. This can be achieved with after-school programs or even technologically-integrated curricula, for example: Virtual reality integrated courses (VRIC) can be developed for any course in order to give them such stimulation. 3D printing integrated courses (3dPIC) can also give youths the stimulation they need in their educational journey. Université de Montréal's Projet SEUR in collaboration with Collège Mont-Royal and La Variable are heavily developing this field.
Higher education
Online college course enrolment has seen a 29% increase in enrolment with nearly one third of all college students, or an estimated 6.7 million students are currently enrolled in online classes. In 2009, 44 percent of post-secondary students in the USA were taking some or all of their courses online, which was projected to rise to 81 percent by 2014.
Although a large proportion of for-profit higher education institutions now offer online classes, only about half of private, non-profit schools do so. Private institutions may become more involved with on-line presentations as the costs decrease. Properly trained staff must also be hired to work with students online. These staff members need to understand the content area, and also be highly trained in the use of the computer and Internet. Online education is rapidly increasing, and online doctoral programs have even developed at leading research universities.
Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) may have limitations that preclude them from fully replacing college education, such programs have significantly expanded. MIT, Stanford and Princeton University offer classes to a global audience, but not for college credit. University-level programs, like edX founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, offer wide range of disciplines at no charge, while others permit students to audit a course at no charge but require a small fee for accreditation. MOOCs have not had a significant impact on higher education and declined after the initial expansion, but are expected to remain in some form.
Corporate and professional
E-learning is being used by companies to deliver mandatory compliance training and updates for regulatory compliance, soft skills and IT skills training, continuing professional development (CPD) and other valuable workplace skills. Companies with spread out distribution chains use e-learning for delivering information about the latest product developments. Most of corporate e-learning is asynchronous and delivered and managed via learning management systems. The big challenge in corporate e-learning is to engage the staff, especially on compliance topics for which periodic staff training is mandated by the law or regulations.
Government and public
There is an important need for recent, reliable, and high-quality health information to be made available to the public as well as in summarized form for public health providers. Providers have indicated the need for automatic notification of the latest research, a single searchable portal of information, and access to grey literature. The Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Library is funded by the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau to screen the latest research and develop automatic notifications to providers through the MCH Alert. Another application in public health is the development of mHealth (use of mobile telecommunication and multimedia into global public health). MHealth has been used to promote prenatal and newborn services, with positive outcomes. In addition, "Health systems have implemented mHealth programs to facilitate emergency medical responses, point-of-care support, health promotion and data collection." In low and middle income countries, mHealth is most frequently used as one-way text messages or phone reminders to promote treatment adherence and gather data.