Online learning is an interactive experience, a dynamic way to improve personal health and corporate wellness. It is this concept of a global classroom, expansive in its material and exceptional in the quality of its faculty, that is a reality now. It is not the sort of imagined future reserved for grand exhibitions and international pavilions, where automation is supreme and technology is a euphemism for endless progress, memorialized by artistic renderings of flying cars and vacations to the Moon.
I write these words as a university lecturer and as the Founder of Monimus.com, an innovative way for users to educate, engage and succeed. My perspective is, therefore, different than another person's theory of what online learning is or should be, because I can attest to the limitless choices of a virtual classroom.
In this environment - in an area where knowledge is paramount and participation is a top priority - companies can apply their existing content, training courses and seminars to our platform. This mutually beneficial arrangement rewards the businesses that own this material, and empowers employees (from other firms) who can profit from lessons about nutrition, fitness, disease management and other related topics.
So, if a multinational firm has an award-winning series of online classes about personal health, we can offer those programs - rather, that company can make that collection available on Monimus.com - and individuals worldwide can enroll in these courses.
This option makes corporate wellness a reality to businesses of any size and employees of every background. The money that that firm earns from the sale of these programs can be reinvested in additional health-oriented initiatives, for the good of all.
This scenario can be a metaphor for success in general - the marriage of technology and information - delivered by teachers on behalf of education itself, where a person broadens their intellect and can apply their knowledge to specific tasks. And, for those individuals with specialized training in medicine or wellness solutions, those skills are transformational in two key respects.
First, that person can engage a global community of executives, workers and everyday citizens. He or she can educate an audience of much greater magnitude than those assembled in an auditorium; this individual can share tips about exercise, maintaining a balanced diet, rules about when and why to see a doctor, and any number of sundry ways to guard against more serious ailments.
And secondly, every such person has the chance to become an instant entrepreneur. In this situation, users can bid for the services of a wellness expert who can customize a health plan for a single worker or thousands of employees. It is this connectedness, which eliminates physical boundaries and erases any notion of distance, uniting a rural physician with an Asian Pacific manufacturing company, or a veteran nurse from Sarasota, Florida, with a technology startup in Silicon Valley.
Globalizing Wellness: The Success of Online Learning
By emphasizing this duo of education and engagement, where there is no limit to the amount of available content and no barriers preventing people from forming their own online communities, the culmination of these efforts is success. How we choose to measure that success, and there are many legitimate ways to do so, is threefold.
One, we should ensure that the direction and purpose of online learning matches our respective needs. Since corporate wellness is a chief ambition for readers of this column, courses should correspond to that goal by the depth of their categories and the breadth of their quality.
Two, we should have - and do, indeed, possess - the freedom to choose. In fact, the very point of corporate wellness and personal health care is about choice, from the doctor you visit and the hospital you select to the online classes you take and the individual instructors you request.
Finally, we should make this system easy to use (which it is) and accessible to all (which it shall always be). For, it is this globalization of wellness - it is this internationalized form of learning, by the teachers of your preference and the community of your creation - that will make us healthier and maybe even happier, too.
These achievements are cause for celebration, furthering the power of knowledge with the speed of advanced technology. This is the beginning of the wellness revolution.
About the Author
Keith Williams is the Founder of Monimus.com, an innovative online learning platform where users can educate, engage and succeed on multiple levels.
