How much do we sacrifice to the Internet? Our privacy, our anonymity, our autonomy, and perhaps our education as well?
Without a doubt we live in an era of unprecedented technological achievements, and this provides new avenues for communication, networking and learning. But what are we giving up as the dependence on the Internet grows?
Technology has unlimited capability to convey complex topics to students. It is a powerful tool that promotes independent study. Everything’s basically a click away. However, the everyday “students” are clicking away in nearly every “classroom.” There is no way around it; online classes are becoming a reality for many campus students. Classrooms are transforming into online discussion boards and occasional group chat sessions.
This unprecedented ability to teach college-level material without the mandatory constraint of a centralized location can be a blessing. For some students, learning online is the only mode that is available to them, as any number of restrictions prevents them from being able to travel to college. Also, using online-focused classes is more environmentally friendly than a typical classroom (in which countless trees are being fashioned into never ending paper trails).
I have no problem with extending public education to as many willing minds as possible, but there is something unnerving about having specific, required courses only offered online. It may not be economically logical to pay for a professor or two to facilitate both a live and online version of a class, but for students that are actually at a campus to learn, what is being cast aside with learning online instead of through legitimate face time?
That is really great educational info…
[...] armor, and drew my rhetorical blade–only to find out that I heartily agreed with the blogger in question. I took off all of my figurative garb, and tweeted back something to the effect of “Different [...]
I think the hey element in the post was in the 5th paragraph:
“I have no problem with extending public education to as many willing minds as possible, but there is something unnerving about having specific, required courses only offered online. ”
I will agree. As an educator of many years – more than some want to calculate – including me – I know the new technology is here and must be embraced. However some people still learn BEST in a classroom – even a classroom that integrates the Internet – it is still best for them in a classroom with a instructor. Institutions cannot make decisions based solely on economics of scale – the decision for educaiton must include the student component and what is the best options for all students must be addressed.
Yes, I embrace teh Internet as a venue fo reducaiton. Yes I embrace the classroom as a venue fo rlearning. Yes I embrace the world as a venue for learning.
Everyone is different in their learning style and the institutions and instructors that embrace those differences will be the ones students of all ages and pathways migrate. They will be the successful teachers and institutions.
Learning – embrace it or wither.
I work for an online education company called Thinkwell. While most of our content is targeting homeschool children and high schoolers, we do have a good bit of college courses out there. The cool thing about online education is that it enables incredible professors to get their classes out there to many more students than they would if they stuck to face-to-face classes. This allows more students to get the quality of instruction they deserve and possibly be more inspired by a great teacher.
We have found many of our programs are used in public schools in conjunction with regular face-to-face classes. I think this may be the best blend of all for students. Allow their teacher to utilize online education to help teach certain subjects to bring more variety into the classroom.
Nice post and conversation here, refreshing to find some college focused material that is not about the top party schools on the USA or sports focused, etc. The New York Times weighed in on this topic in a similar tangent today.
http://nyti.ms/azA1rm
I do agree that online education has gotten a bad reputation from the growth of the online classroom without the concurrent growth of standards within schools.
My main issue regarding online classes is that I think there is something that is lost when face-to-face time is eschewed. Though I have taken a few online classes that were rigorous, I have still felt the classes lacked a critical component. It might just be that I need as much exposure to a topic as possible, before it finally stays, and class time might help with that.
I was actually just talking about this with a good friend of mine. I have taken face-to-face classes that have been taught poorly, and it seems like an online class would have been superior.
In some departments, the online classes have been extremely successful, not to mention an economic stimulus. Others though, have quite a lot to do to make their classes viable replacements in terms of learning quality.
Online education has gotten a bad rap and you should be leery of what schools you get your degree from. But, so many things are changing for the better and aren’t the same way they used to be- phones, cars, perceptions in society, computers- those changes are for the most part embraced- why is it difficult to do the same for education?
I should I qualify this by saying I didn’t get my degree online. I went to a traditional college and have only taken one online class. But I now work for a university that has a large online component and my perceptions of online degrees have changed.
Hey Annie and Diego,
Thanks for the comments. I wrote this piece, and I agree that there are a lot of different variables which must be accounted for in order to develop a final verdict.
The linked article is very interesting, and I think that it raises a lot of good points about the role of online-learning. I think the that the comparisons of face-to-face vs. online-only vs. mixed online and face-to-face is very interesting. I think that implementing online resources in addition to face-to-face teaching has untapped potential, and it also appears to provide the greatest learning outcomes.
I think that their studies regarding K-12 education is also very interesting, as those results were a little bit more ambiguous. I wonder how the results would compare freshman and senior undergraduates. We might see that age and motivation are some of the most critical factors. Or the most prominent factor might simply be time spent on the class.
How technology is being used to teach, or how we are adapting to new technology is as interesting topic as it is an expansive one. I think that, like Diego said, there are merits to both. The fields of cognitive neuroscience, human factors, and classical pedagogy have to reconcile with student accessibility and instructor ability. I agree that we will be seeing much more of this in the future.
I, too, thought this was well-written. I found the link that the previous commenter posted very interesting as well. If, as the report suggests, students performed better (in certain parameters) than those in regular classrooms, does it mean that the students themselves are changing because of the spread of technology or that technology is being adapted to better serve the needs of students? I think there is some merit to both arguments. This is a very interesting topic which I think we will hear more about in the future, much more.
Hey Mitch, very well written post.
What are your thoughts on the fact that US-Dept of Education released a study that concluded “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
Here is the study. http://www.nachi.org/documents/US-Department-of-Education-Online-Education-Report.pdf
I’ll try to put this to good use imemdiately.