Online Courses: Pros and Cons
Education today is not how it used to be fifty years ago. The days of depending only on what the teachers say and gaining information from sources only introduced by schools are now over. With the advent of technology and accessibility of high-speed internet for the people in most countries of the world, one can reach the exact kind of information they are looking for in less than a few seconds. If someone wants to learn something, they are just a few clicks away from it. Nowadays online courses are offered to anyone who feels like learning something new. To sign up for and follow one of these courses, a person only needs to connect to the internet and watch the video lectures at home. It seems so comfortable, efficient, and convenient. But, can we say with certainty that online students necessarily are more educated than the ones of campus-based classes? The answer is not actually that clear; as Terry Anderson puts it in Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2008), “(t)here is ongoing debate about whether it is the use of a particular delivery technology or the design of the instruction that improves learning (Clark, 2001; Kozma, 2001).”
One of the advantages of taking an online course is that students can be at the “class” any time they want. If it was a campus-based course, they had to go to the college on a specific day of the week at the exact time _ which most of the time would be in the daytime. That is not the case in online courses. The flexibility sounds great for people with jobs or people who are busy with their children in the daytime and only have time for studying at nights. The student can start a class at 2 A.M if he or she feels like it. Thus, you cannot miss a class in an online course. If you are ill or just not ready to take your class, you can take it tomorrow or the day after that.
There are a number of people who do not have the physical ability to take a real class in colleges or educational institutes, like really old people or the disabled. Online courses are a great opportunity for this group of people to learn and get valid certificates.
Most of the online courses are offered free. Considering the huge tuitions of fine colleges throughout the world, learning through the internet could be an excellent way to learn new skills and boost careers without having to pay a great deal of money for it _ if any at all.
Another advantage of the online courses is how easy it is for the professors to be integrated into the course. Even if they live in another continent, they can be in constant contact with the students. They record the video-lectures wherever they are and comment on the students’ progress through the internet. The tutors can also update materials anytime from wherever they are and it is easy for the students to see the changes right away; and when this happens, it will be much easier for the professor to direct the students to the information they need. (Anderson, 2008).
Donald Clark - Guardian Professional - believes that sitting in a class and listening to a lecture face-to-face with the professor is a not a smart way to learn, as it is only the voice of a person reading his or her notes aloud, and the student only gets to hear it once. In his article “Ten Reasons We Should Ditch University Lectures”(15 May 2014), Donald Clark mentions “Imagine if a movie were shown only once. Or, your local newspaper was read out just once a day in the local square. Or novelists read their books out once to an invited audience. That is face-to-face lectures for you: it is that stupid. (Clark 2014)”Plus, the professors often rely on the students to take notes, but note taking is not properly taught to the students in most cases (Clark, 2014).
Despite all the advantages mentioned above, it still can’t be said with great certitude that taking online courses is the perfect way to learn. There are also aspects of this kind of learning that are considered disadvantages.
Having to participate in a real classroom and facing the instructor at a regular basis is a great “push” to lead students through studying hard and succeeding in an educational course. If there is no real obligation to meet the requirements of the class in an orderly fashion, there is little certainty that the student would actually do all the studying and homework required by the professor _ unless maybe if they really need the certificate to get a job or they are hard-workers by nature.
Joining a class leads to meeting new people and making new friends. Going through the course with friends - sharing books and notes, studying together, reminding each other of the deadlines, etc. - definitely makes it easier to pass. In addition, with the advantage of having classmates and teacher assistants as friends, a student’s chance of discovering new opportunities and possibilities will increase. In an online course, there are no such things; the student is all by him/herself and that can lead to discouragement.
Another important issue that makes online education not a perfect method is the students’ not being able to use the facilities offered by the university. A university has a reliable library where students can reach books and theses written by other students in the same field as theirs, it holds conferences and seminars and it is a great place to do researches and experiments. If a person is a university student, he or she is more likely to be attracted to studying and try to make progress. Sitting by the computer at home while participating in an online class may make the students end up feeling less enthusiastic.
Although the beneficial aspects of online education mentioned in this article seem more in number than the negative sides of it, it is not true that the advantages of online courses overweigh the disadvantages of it. We can simply conclude that it depends for different groups of people whether they need an online course or they should register in a college and go to class. If a person is so self-occupied that he or she has no time to go back and forth to a class at a certain time, then an online course is an excellent choice for him or her. The only thing to have in mind is that according to Rossett (2002), “online learning has many promises, but it takes commitment and resources, and it must be done right.”(Terryson, 2008).
If someone is fresh from high school and ready to start their professional education, then online learning is not an appropriate option for them as it most probably leads to immobility and inaction and is not likely to actually take them to the social stand they want to reach. Before deciding which method of education is appropriate for them, people should really think about their situation, what their goal is and what they expect from themselves. One can definitely succeed using each one of these education methods if he or she has chosen it wisely and worked really hard to get out of it full-handed.
Works Cited
Anderson, Terry. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca: University Press, 2008. Pdf.
Clark, Donald. “Ten Reasons We Should Ditch University Lectures”. TheGuardian. Thursday 15 May 2014. Access date: October 16, 2014
