Online+Education

This commercial is promoting //Education Connection//, a program on the internet which helps you find the right online college for you. The spokeswoman catches your attention by explaining how you can get your entire college degree while wearing your pajamas. This seems to be a quick and easy way to get your degree and jump right into a career. The spokeswoman even states that people with a degree earn approximately $1,000,000 more in their life time than those who don’t, but this concept felt completely wrong to me. This commercial looks like a big step in the wrong direction to those interested in changing shape of higher education. It’s true that technological advances have made it a lot easier for college students to get through their classes. Laptops and cell phones have given us information at our fingertips. However, working entirely online to receive a diploma is a misuse of technology within higher education. It’s always practical to use technology within education; even some online classes are useful to fit into your schedule while taking other classes. But to change the shape of higher education for the better, we can’t eliminate all social interaction and base it all through the internet. I find that I understand concepts better if I’m working with others, bouncing ideas off one another. Making new friends in class and having a good bong with a professor is the key to a successful education. Therefore, the use of the internet to attain an entire college degree will change the entire experience of college. Sara Miner

http://education-portal.com/articles/Pros_and_Cons_of_Online_Education.html

Kevin Daniele

This article discussed the pros and cons of receiving an online education. While there are arguments supporting both sides of this debate, I myself, am leaning against online educations. Having taking an entirely online based class last semester, I found it to be not only difficult, but also useless. I do not think I learned anything from that class. I feel that today’s youth needs to be taught in a hands on environment, there are far too many distractions if they are to try and receive their education on the computer. The article also talked about how online leaning is making people antisocial, and not teaching people to have what many think is very important in the working world, “people skills”. I am going to have to agree with the article on this. There are so many young people that have no people skills at all and are just not social what so ever. With colleges based solely online, a person could basically attend a four year college and never have to have a one on one encounter with a human being the whole time. This can not be good for someone when they get into the working world, where they are forced to interact with people. Although I agree with the cons of the argument, one argument for online education did stand out, the fact that with this economy online education is more cost effective. It is cheaper for people to receive an online education rather than attending a four year university, which seems to be the appeal of an online education.

Sarah Johnson [|sjohnson83wikistudent] [] Jeff Lakie makes certain points in his article “Disadvantages of Online Education” that I think are spot on. The topic of increasingly online college is addressed and it is acknowledged that online courses or the completely online college education has advantages but it has detriments too, perhaps for the same reasons. Lakie points out that the busy lifestyle of today’s people, lack of time, jobs, family, and the like would make one take courses online to do things on their own time. However Lakie brings to light that if one doesn’t have time to devote to attending the college in the first place, finding time to still do it somewhere else is not really plausible. Also, one would realize that as brought up in the article it might be even more difficult to apply oneself because there would be no arranged times to be in class, to turn in assignments, receive help and have monitored progress. That being said, all of these things can be put off, and a different discretionary pace is set for the accomplishment of the credits and degree. Would one really take time to set these things, the schedule the motivation and such, on their own when the reason they are “colleging” on line is because of a lifestyle or circumstances that do not allow for the time? I think that this says a lot about society and higher education, that they are changing together in relation to each other. It seems that there is more and more a culture of fast paced individualized living and goals (an “individualized to my schedule and life” way of education for example). Now does this reflect on the changing shape of higher education? Is it this new culture that is changing the shape of higher education? At least in the way of online education it has, because it seems to have created this online education degree.

John Endres [] This video promotes the advantages of online education boasting that learning is done on your time, when you’re in the right mind set; and that teachers can easily be contacted through the internet via email, Skype or other online chat services. This Online Education is clearly valuable to anyone who wants to change the shape of Higher Education into something as impersonal and lackluster as online education. This service is valuable for anyone who wants to destroy the college experience as it is perceived today. Strictly taking online classes at a university removes any social aspect of school, other than email a teacher, of course. Frankly, the ideas behind online education upset me. It takes the idea of college, and turns it into a for-profit money making machine, distilling the college experience down to nothing more than a degree. I genuinely believe that there is much, much more to college than a simple piece of paper stating that you have attained a sophisticated understanding in a certain field. Online education has certain benefits, and I understand why people would partake in the service. But, it is by no means a substitute for a college education from a four-year institution. Finding yourself by interacting with people, living on your own for the first time and all of the other drastic changes relative to one’s life in high school provided by college create an experience that teaches those lucky enough to partake so much more than can be learned through a computer screen. In my first semester at Chico State I have learned so much more at a substantial increased rate I never thought possible. I am enjoying learning for the first time in my life, and I cannot understand how anyone could feel the same away about learning in other circumstances. Perhaps my aggressive stance on online education stems from my naivety as a freshman, but I stand firmly against the growing use of online education and thus derogation of the College Experience.