Online learning can be effective. US needs more e-colleges.

Parents Forum
1

<p>Virtual</a> ivy: why the US needs more e-colleges - Yahoo! News</p>

<p>"Children born since the dawn of the Internet Age probably wouldn't think twice about learning online. They might just as soon read a Shakespeare sonnet on Twitter as hear it live from a teacher in a classroom.</p>

<p>And yet the educational establishment still debates whether e-learning (aka "virtual schooling" or "distance education") can be as good as traditional in-person teaching in a campus setting. Jokes are still being made about successful e-schools, such as the University of Phoenix, as being "diploma mills."</p>

<p>Now the results of a recent federal study should help "log out" of that tired debate. The study, released by the US Department of Education, found that many types of online education for a college degree are better at raising student achievement than face-to-face teaching is.</p>

<p>That's quite a seal of approval.</p>

<p>The big advantage in digital learning is the "time on task," or flexibility for a student to absorb the content of a subject. Once students are given "control of their interactions," they can set their own pace. They often study longer or visualize a problem differently. Professors are also forced to design better instructional techniques by the very nature of the technology.</p>

<p>The most effective learning occurs when a school combines e-learning with classroom teaching. Yet for many students, such as stay-at-home parents or those with day jobs or those with low income, online learning is all they can afford in time or money.</p>

<p>The Education Department is making plans to create free, online courses for the nation's 1,200 community colleges – which teach nearly half of undergrads – to make it easier for students to learn basic skills for jobs. The courses would be offered as part of a "national skills college" managed by the department.</p>

<p>The rapid rise of e-learning may finally help burst the bubble in rising tuition costs, which now average more than $25,000 a year for a degree from a private bricks-and-mortar institution. "</p>

2

<p>The biggest problem with e-learning is verification that the student did the work. In a face-to-face setting, the professor at least has control of the environment. Yes, some kids cheat in face-to-face settings but at least there are efforts made at controlling it.</p>

<p>The other issue is the level of motivation. The student has to be highly self-motivated as there is no face-to-face reminder (like the professor calling you out in class) and it’s easy to let things slip.</p>

3

<p>BC Eagle, CUNY is starting some hybrd classes, where kids meet face to face once with prof, then online classes, then final in person. This doesnt help our forces overseas (for the most part) but can help others. I agree we will need monitored proctoring.</p>

<p>In a similar area (duplicate bridge, pls tell me I am not the only bridge player here), when time was tight for a junior qualifier, the US orgazniation had online trials, where participants had to compete at monitored sites. I think accreditation needs to look at ways to conduct finals.</p>

4

<p>Some universities have podcasts of lectures available to students who are enrolled in the class (I know this for sure about Stanford, but I am sure there are many more schools that do this). It costs the same (you can go to the lectures, or you can listen to them on line), and I think the students still have to come to the tests. But it can be a very convenient way to take classes, especially for part-time students who work during the day.</p>

5

<p>I have completed 6 graduate courses on-line. 5 were accompanied by lectures on VHS or DVD. All of the courses were run with Blackboard. Usually there were 10 discussion forums that we were expected to contribute to. There were one or two mid-term papers/projects and a final exam/project. The first final exam was taken on paper in a proctored situation (most of us arranged to do it at our local public libraries), and I had to fax it to the department. Some were open-book essays that could be composed in advance and then pasted into Blackboard. Only one was a “write on this topic cold for up to 2 hours in this Blackboard box” situation.</p>

<p>Online coursework is only for the self-motivated and self-disciplined student. The human interaction that is necessary for most learners can be very low - to the point of being nil. The chief advantages of online education are:

  1. The learner and faculty can spend time on coursework when it best fits his/her schedule.
  2. The learner and faculty can be anywhere in the world.</p>

<p>Based on my own experience, I have deep concerns about the potential for faculty overwork/abuse/underpayment with this model, as well as deep concerns about lack of supervision of faculty members. Perhaps at other institutions, the faculty members are more consistent and more skilled in their communication with the students. At mine, all too often it was like pulling teeth. In courses that had teaching assistants, the communication and feedback were consistently better than in the courses taught by only a faculty member - primarily because the teaching assistants were responsible for all routine communication. For the price, and the convenience, I don’t mind that I had to teach myself much of the material. However, I truly missed the human contact.</p>

<p>There is a whole school of educational thought that holds that learning best takes place in the context of relationships with other people. Placing the learning in an entirely online (and often in an entirely text-based rather than aural-oral environment) pushes the limits of adequate relationship stimuli for many of us.</p>

6

<p>The University of Illinois tried to start a global campus, and it failed completely. They spent millions of dollars, and at last count, had less than 250 students.</p>

7

<p>From The Onion:</p>

<p>[Online</a> University Cracks Down On Rowdy Online Fraternity | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“The Onion | America's Finest News Source.”>The Onion | America's Finest News Source.)</p>

8

<p>On-line learning can, I’m sure, be effective, but can’t replace the kind of education one gets by being able to interact in real life with peers on college campuses. The ECs and peer interactions – particularly by having to rub shoulders with people inside and outside of class who came from very different backgrounds-- can’t be duplicated on-line.</p>