Educational Alternatives ISSN 1314-7277, Volume 13, 2015 Journal of International Scientific Publications www.scientific-publications.net PERSPECTIVES OF ONLINE EDUCATION IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC Jiří Pospíšil, Helena Pospíšilová, Milena Öbrink Hobzová, Petra Sobková Sts. Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology, Palacký University in Olomouc Univerzitní 22, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech Republic Abstract The paper deals with the future of online education in the Czech Republic. It maps whether people in different social and personal situations are interested in the online form of education, and whether there are some correlations between computer skills, age, education, population of resides on the one side and the attitudes to online learning on the other side. Key words: education, online, courses, perspectives, conditions, specific population groups 1. WHAT IS ONLINE EDUCATION? Online education is with no doubt the very actual theme of nowadays theoretical discussion in pedagogy as well as the actual practical phenomena which couldn’t be ignored by any modern society. Before we start to discuss practical questions, we have to state what we exactly mean by the term online education and what are the differences among online education, distance learning and e- learning. There exist many definitions of distance learning but, for our case, we can follow the simple definition which describes the effort of providing access to learning for those who are geographically distant (Poulin, 2003; Moore, Dickson-Deane and Galyen, 2011). The concept of distance learning is almost two hundred years old (Specter, Merrill, Merrienboer and Dristoll, 2008) and originally it was based on post correspondence. According to the definition the distance learning is a specific form of learning and it doesn’t depends on the kind of method of delivering learning materials. Obviously when the computers and especially personal computers were developed, the methods of delivering information have been definitively changed. But, as Moore (1990) highlights, both the printed and electronic ways of delivering are often used. We believe that in the era of fast internet connection and high quality mobile electronic readers (tablets or e-book readers) the age of papers is almost at the end. On the opposite to the concept of distance learning the concept of e-learning is not so clear. First of all we argue that e-learning in its own substance is not a form of education but it is the method of education, more specifically method of delivering information and communication. The e-learning from this point of view is nothing more than the usage of available technology (Poulin, 2003) in educational process in both common and distance form of learning. E-learning materials are in this time used at the universities as well as at secondary and high schools (it doesn’t matter whether the originator of material is from the school where the resources are used). The electronic delivery of information should very vary from interactive CD, TV to the modern web based technologies and complex LCMS systems. (Allen, 2003) According to previous definitions distance learning and e-learning, online education is the special case of e-learning and should fulfill the idea of distance learning. Since the turn of the millennium online teaching and learning presents in many ways the future of education (Sutton, Basiel, 2014) The fact whether the online distributed material is or is not the distance education depends especially on the intention of the author. It can be used only for delivering information with some form of interaction but it can also be the very complex course such as some MOOC courses from the world top universities are. In our case we assume that the educational institutions should be interested in creation of complex courses for many reasons and for different purposes. In this article we mention only those of them which are, by our opinion, the most important: Page 168