Online education

Today, we had a class online through join.me, which I actually thought was kind of cool! It was a lot harder than I expected, though, to pay attention to the chat at all times. Sometimes I would find myself backtracking through the conversations when I got distracted by tv, facebook, etc...
Online schooling: I am not sure how I feel about it entirely, but I have taken one on-line class in college. Personally, it wasn't the best option for ME because I had a really hard time keeping up with the work because I didn't have the constant reminders of what I needed to do by going to class once or twice a week.
Advantages: I think the biggest advantages of online education is the accessibility of it. Anyone with internet access could "attend" class, especially those who couldn't easily make a weekly- scheduled class meeting. Secondly, online education provides information in a different format than traditional education. This format may be better for some types of learners, especially children and adults with disabilities. A third advantage of online learning is that it is taken at the student's pace- they can work ahead if they choose, or plan their work around their schedule, rather than the set-in-stone schedule from the professor.

But I think there are also quite a few disadvantages to this. On one note, many students might find it hard to keep up with the work if they are not being held "accountable" to the course by attending class. Also, I think that sometimes students who learn online exclusively miss a valuable opportunity to have face to face contact and communication with the teacher and with other students. Online communication just isn't as personal...And lastly, online courses give students huge potential to work ahead....and HUGE potential to fall waaaay behind. I know so many friends who took online classes at Ohio State...and come the end of the quarter, they were in the library for days on end, making up the assignments that they "forgot" to do. You would have to be an extremely organized student to learn online!

I think a mixture of online learning and classroom learning would be the best option for most students. It would give them different opportunities and formats to learn new information and collaborate with the teacher and other students. For me, I think I'll just stick to dragging myself to class...