Alexander,
Yes, the differences in 'qualities' are real. I responded above. I do believe it is not all bad, but there are significant losses at the current stage of online instruction.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Alexander,
I appreciate your perspective. My education was much like yours. I believe the students miss out on a lot of 'lessons' and important aspects human interaction. You and I may say 'they should' but this is the reality of the direction of the 'marketplace.' How do we best play the hand we have?
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I do not believe that all content areas are tailored to the online environment. Teaching quantitative courses online is exceedingly difficult since the difference on student comprehension is difficult to address. For example when a student submits spreadsheets with numerous errors it is difficult to locate all errors and explain issues adequately in an email. This of course will reflect back to the necessary lower numbers for student to faculty ratio in forum 1.
Online learning seems to have a place in society, but it is not a model that suits everyone. The value of interpersonal communication, with a physical presence, can never be replaced.
There is also great value in being in a class of other students, to whom you can look for guidance. Sometimes, just a sideways glance at another person is enough to make us feel at ease, or lead us in the right direction (social cues). This sort of interaction is not (yet) possible through the online platform. Other types of critical social interaction are missing from the platform, as well, which may suit the busy professional just fine, but is not suited towards the gregarious 15 year old, for instance.
I see many people here touting the convenience of online learning. Should the quality of our life (or education) measured ONLY by how convenient they are? I have to say that most of my traditional learning was NOT convenient at all.
But, being inconvenienced and learning patience builds character. Making things too convenient produces a mentality of entitlement that I see is WAY too prevalent in America.
A degree earned totally in front of a computer is incomplete as far as I am concerned because it lacks a real connection. Have you ever attened a virtual graduation? What a joke!
Inconvenience and patience are a large part of the learning process. I bet we as a society would be much more tolerant and better off if we put these two elements back into the curriculum. And, like my Father always says: “Anything worth getting shouldn't come easy.â€
Virtual people living in a virtual world may never touch a book ever again. But, real people read books.
You cannot compare virtual reality with reality. See my post above called: Don't you find this troubling? I'm curious what you think.
I agree. Face to face social skills ARE becoming a thing of the past. Remember, we called those social skills MANNERS in the "old" days. I notice A LOT of people today in the United States lack any common courtesy or respect for others. They plug in their iPod or Bluetooth headset and move about the world as if no one else mattered. I find this sad and pathetic. However, I do not notice with behavior with students from Asia, Europe, Africa and other places.
As we disconnect from our family, friends, co-workers and neighbors we are going to find ourselves more and more alone.
Friends help you move to your new apartment. Friends give you hug or pat your back when you need it or deserve it. They have a couple of drinks with you and spend hours with you solving the world's problems. Friends give and friends take. Friends can be inconvenient at times.
I see many people here touting the convenience of online learning. Is the quality of our life (or education) measured ONLY by how convenient things are? I have to say that most of my traditional learning was NOT convenient at all.
But, being inconvenienced and learning patience builds character. Making things too convenient produces a mentality of entitlement that I see is WAY too prevalent in America.
Bottom line: Facebook friends don’t help you move. A degree earned totally in front of a computer is incomplete. Inconvenience and patience are a large part of the learning process. I bet we as a society would be much more tolerant and better off if we put these two elements back into the curriculum. And, like my Father always says: “Anything worth getting shouldn't come easy.â€
I do not think that online learning will replace traditional classroom learning. However, I do feel that in the future all learning will be at least blended including online learning even when the course is a traditional face to face course. Students will become accustomed to posting work online and conducting at least some course activities online. Occasionally, they may take a fully online course but they will already be familiar with the LMS and the online environment. These blended courses and fully online courses will co-exist as alternatives to students.
No, I think there will always be people who want the classroom environment, whether instructors or students. What I am interested in is which one, online or classroom, will be less costly. I am very pleased with online courses because they make higher education available to students who would otherwise not be able to get advanced degrees!
I believe that eventually online learning will constitute most of formal learning. I say this because of the convenience of increasingly used technology. I think that in decades to come ALL people will use technology a great deal. In the future when people rely on technology even more than they do at present, the advantages of using technology will heavily outweigh its disadvantages. The traditional, on-ground classroom will not be able to trump the CONVENIENCE of online learning, even formal online learning. The convenience factor is the primary reason that I think MOST learning, even formal learning, will take place online.
I think it has potential to replace some classrooms as instructors get better and better and developing and administrating online courses. However, there is still a lot to be said about immediate face to face interaction and its ability to create intellectual interaction. As the online classroom develops though it will likely become better at creating this experience.
Technological advancements may make online education more affordable for the masses here in the US and overseas, since colleges and universities will no longer need to have as much in the way of bricks and mortar. However, I believe there will always be a place for traditional classrooms, if only because people are already drawn to "exclusive" schools such as Harvard for reasons that have little to do purely with academics and largely to do with the social and business connections one makes there. Much of Harvard's appeal is due to its exclusivity, not its academics.
I was reading an article this morning in the Washington Post about an experiment by an international consortium of elite private schools in using online classrooms. From the article, one of the advantages is that it does away with some of the issues of distance, physical and in terms of social class. One of the participants in the consortium is a school in Jordan. A Berber student from Jordan was able to break some stereotypes of modern Berbers as all nomadic types living in tents while she learned that many Americans do understand that not all Muslims are terrorists. This may have occurred had she come here as a foreign student or if the American students had gone to Jordan, but having the online experience makes such cross-cultural understanding affordable to a larger number of people worldwide.
Mara,
Yes, there are a lot of 'experiments' out there with online instructional systems. It will be interesting to see what innovations come out of them.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Mara,
You make your point well. It is a solid summation of online in the current state of technology. Do you think technology advancements may change this in any significant way? Thank you for your contribution.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Donald,
This is an intriguing perspective. It sounds very plausible. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Some brick and mortar colleges and universities are experimenting with offering free online courses, a model that doesn't seem very sustainable. Right now, the ground campuses are subsidizing the online, but it seems to me that it will be difficult to switch from offering "free" courses to getting people to pay for them the way they do now for bricks-and-mortar.
No, I believe that it will not replace the traditional classroom. In my experience, online learning requires the students to take more responsibility for their own learning. Not all students want to or are capable of doing this. When classes are offered on an asynchronous basis, it requires students to organize and be responsible for remembering to do assignments and participate in discussions. Asynchronous classes also do not provide immediate interaction and gratification for students. Synchronous classes, as are done traditionally, are a possibility online, but defeat one of the main reasons students take online classes: to work around work and family obligations. It's my belief that online learning has its place as supplement to traditional classrooms but not as a replacement for them.
I agree that online learning will replace on-ground learning for the middle and lower class of students. The reason is because online learning standardizes the learning experience, and what will be produced are individuals who are more or less the same in terms of ability and experience. On the other hand, I do not believe that online learning will become the norm for the upper classes because these are the individuals who will run companies and nations. They will need an understanding the nuances of the educational experience so as to be better able to fulfill their destiny.
