Online courses are becoming more and more popular.
Do you think that such kind of education will become more popular than traditional one?
Please, tell us about its advantages and disadvantages, and the situation in your country.
Yes, I think that online education will become more popular in coming years and will take a large market share in the educational sector , but it will not replace the traditional education in coming years.
An excellent example of online course platform is coursera in which the courses are offered by top rated university professors. I tool one course myself and found it very useful. Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
There are advantages and disadvantages when we compare online and traditional teaching
Online Learning Advantages:
Lots of flexibility. With distance learning courses, students can complete their course work from just about anywhere, provided there’s a computer and internet connection. This allows students to work when and where it is more convenient for them without having to squeeze in scheduled classes to an already busy life.
No commuting. Taking a course online can be one way to cut down on costly gas or public transportation. Since students can often work from home to complete their class assignments, both time and money are saved in cutting out the trips to and from class.
Numerous choices for schools. Even if you live in a community with few or no colleges distance learning allows you to choose from a wide variety of schools to complete your education. You may find online schools that specialize in your particular field or one that can provide a great general education. Either way, your options for education will be greatly expanded.
Lowered costs. Prices for online courses are generally cheaper than their on-campus counterparts and you won’t have to worry about commuting, moving or getting meal plans on campus,
Distance Learning Disadvantages:
Lack of social interaction. If the classroom environment is what you love most about learning you may want to take a step back and reconsider distance learning. You’ll likely get some interaction on chat rooms, discussion boards and through email, but the experience will be quite different than traditional courses.
Format isn’t ideal for all learners. Not everyone is an ideal candidate for online learning. If you know you have problems with motivation, procrastination and needs lots of individual attention from an instructor you may want to think long and hard before enrolling in an online learning program.
Some employers don’t accept online degrees. While a majority of employers will, there are some who still see a stigma attached to distance learning. Realize that your online degree may not be the ideal tool for some job fields or for future learning.
Requires adaptability to new technologies. If you’ve never been one to love working with technology you will probably get a lot less out of an online course than your more tech-savvy counterparts. Make sure you feel comfortable working with computers and with online programs before you sign up for a class.
Not all courses required to complete the degree may be offered online. It makes sense that more practical majors like nursing aren’t offered entirely online, after all, part of the degree is learning to work directly with patients. Find out all the requirements of your degree to see what may need to be completed offline.
http://www.distancelearningnet.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-distance-learning/
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/20432/education/top_10_distance_learning_disadvantages.html
https://www.coursera.org/courses
Yes, I think that online education will become more popular in coming years and will take a large market share in the educational sector , but it will not replace the traditional education in coming years.
An excellent example of online course platform is coursera in which the courses are offered by top rated university professors. I tool one course myself and found it very useful. Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
There are advantages and disadvantages when we compare online and traditional teaching
Online Learning Advantages:
Lots of flexibility. With distance learning courses, students can complete their course work from just about anywhere, provided there’s a computer and internet connection. This allows students to work when and where it is more convenient for them without having to squeeze in scheduled classes to an already busy life.
No commuting. Taking a course online can be one way to cut down on costly gas or public transportation. Since students can often work from home to complete their class assignments, both time and money are saved in cutting out the trips to and from class.
Numerous choices for schools. Even if you live in a community with few or no colleges distance learning allows you to choose from a wide variety of schools to complete your education. You may find online schools that specialize in your particular field or one that can provide a great general education. Either way, your options for education will be greatly expanded.
Lowered costs. Prices for online courses are generally cheaper than their on-campus counterparts and you won’t have to worry about commuting, moving or getting meal plans on campus,
Distance Learning Disadvantages:
Lack of social interaction. If the classroom environment is what you love most about learning you may want to take a step back and reconsider distance learning. You’ll likely get some interaction on chat rooms, discussion boards and through email, but the experience will be quite different than traditional courses.
Format isn’t ideal for all learners. Not everyone is an ideal candidate for online learning. If you know you have problems with motivation, procrastination and needs lots of individual attention from an instructor you may want to think long and hard before enrolling in an online learning program.
Some employers don’t accept online degrees. While a majority of employers will, there are some who still see a stigma attached to distance learning. Realize that your online degree may not be the ideal tool for some job fields or for future learning.
Requires adaptability to new technologies. If you’ve never been one to love working with technology you will probably get a lot less out of an online course than your more tech-savvy counterparts. Make sure you feel comfortable working with computers and with online programs before you sign up for a class.
Not all courses required to complete the degree may be offered online. It makes sense that more practical majors like nursing aren’t offered entirely online, after all, part of the degree is learning to work directly with patients. Find out all the requirements of your degree to see what may need to be completed offline.
http://www.distancelearningnet.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-distance-learning/
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/20432/education/top_10_distance_learning_disadvantages.html
https://www.coursera.org/courses
Dear Jesus,
Yes, it could be more popular but not more efficient.
Its cheapness may be one of the reasons of its popularity for a wile until its efficiency becomes well known. Of course, some institutions will get extra money but I do not think their teaching quality would be extra or even average.
With the developments in mobile technology on line education is going to increase. It has many advantages while there are also many disadvantages. We have seen in India mobile banking has taken a large leap and so will on-line education. It will be difficult to compare with the face-to-face mode because a teacher is always going to be better at helping the student than the computer alone. But on-line education will be more meaningful for many of the disadvantaged and non-traditional students because of its better time management, and on a more leisurely scale for some people.
In birds, life birds that transmit the details of song types to others are copied/learnt more efficiently than playback of the same song types without life tutors.
Are meeting via computer systems less efficient than classical meetings?
It all depends in what concept of distance education you are talking about. For adult learning, yes I think more and more we will have courses relaying on online platforms to develop their work. But for initial or elementary school process face to face interaction is indispensable, the human development depend in interactional process and on mediated learning experience. In any approach that you can think for education the interaction will be necessary for that specific period of life.
But I would actually think about is not if is going to be an more popular strategy or not, but how could we actually promote an online education that reaches to the aims of an educational process? And more, how can we assess the process?
thank you for your question
Yes, I believe that online education will become more popular than traditional education. Online Education has many advantages from four perspectives:
a) Convenience and flexibility
1. Schedule Flexibility: Students can access their course at any time, from anywhere they can log on, in most cases.
2. Ease of accessibility: Courseware can be accessible for students when they need it. Students can review lectures, discussions, explanations, and comments. Individuals can also share notes with each other to help facilitate community learning.
3. Range of options: Students may be able to choose from a wider breadth of degree programs.
4. Students control study time: On-campus courses are typically scheduled in a more rigid format, with shorter classes running 50 minutes, and others running longer. Night classes may last for nearly three hours. One of the benefits of online education is that students may not have to sit for long periods of time. Lessons can be paused when needed, and notes read at will.
b) Student enrichment
1. Chance for interaction: Online courses may be less intimidating than the brick-and-mortar classroom setting, and could help to increase student interaction. By allowing everyone to have a voice, shared ideas grow diverse as well. Students can also think longer about what they want to say and add their comments when ready. In a traditional classroom, the conversation could have moved past the point where the student may be willing to comment.
2. Online communications: Instructors can be more approachable in the online setting. Students may feel more comfortable talking openly with their teachers through online chats, emails, and newsgroup discussions rather than face-to-face. Online correspondence also cuts out having to wait for office hours that may not be convenient for either party.
c) Time to absorb material: Positive results are reported for students enrolled in online classes, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Education: "on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/benefits-of-online-learning.htm
Online education will be more and more popular, especially for adults, bachelor and above. The students can follow a program and do researches in many different sources, talk to specialists, share their findings on social network, look up new words on online dictionaries, compare different definitions to what they are studying. Teachers can also be found on videos or the students can call them by voice or send them messages. The teacher can answer the student or set an oline appointment, send the student links that he will be able to see several times after class. Actually, I keep asking my self how and why the old fashioned stystem is still being used.
Disavantages of the traditional system:
The paper books will disappear and most of the teachers and students will not have learned how to use them. They are heavy and little practicle to work with. A high school textbook have more than 1,000 pages. Some kids have developed physical problems carrying them home and back to school.
It is difficult to find any content on a printed material. Say that a teacher says that a scientist declared a certain thing on a book. The book is 450 pages long and the student has to read it through until his finds what he wants, and he wants only one statement from that whole stuff. Online books allow the students to type on a search and the student is taken immediately to what he was looking for.
The traditional system does not accept peer interaction most of the time. Students are supposed to look at the teacher, to a video, to a slide. No side conversation is ever allowed. Besides, the system is very competitive. That does not help socialization either.
Students behavior in the classroom is becoming each day more difficult. The students have their computers, cell phones or tablets and lots of attention is taken from the subject studied during classes. And in Brazil if a teacher asks to have that eletronic device to give the student back at the end of the class they can have a law suit.
In Brazil the online diplomas do not state that they were taken online. It is just like a traditional one.
I took some courses online that I believe those schools exist just to sell diplomas. But there are many schools that exit exclusively with the same purpose.
I could name thousands of motives why I do not think that the traditional educational system should have been forgotten completely. Many professions started in a very rudimentary way and now they are very precise, futuristic and lots of them have nothing to do with what they were before. But teaching, lecturing, testing have changed very little or nothing in many cases. We, teachers, people who wants to qualify people to change the world, have to take a further step to change our daily practices. We change math, history, biology, medicine and forth and pedagogy seems way back to what the Greeks were doing in a very remote time.
When we shift completely to online programs, there will be new problems, internet connection may be down, hackers, and many others. I just hope that we, teachers, will not have crossed our arms again, and that we may look for new solutions for those new problems in timely manner and not wait until everything around us to change again so that we may look into our own teaching.
Researchgate is a real prove that internet does let us alone, without socialization. In the past the works now published here were found or lost somewhere covered with dust in many libraries. What a waste of energy! Now the work is publish as soon as it is finished and many other people in the area can give contribuitions to that work. It can also help people develop new texts.
On-line education does have its usefulness and value which have been mentioned by other contributors. However it will probably never fully replace face-to-face teaching (a mix of both is most likely) due to the time that is required to develop a high quality on-line course/programme.
Traditional education is how we got so far in science and technology today. Establishing online education itself required traditional training. It is hard to imagine a developing world without actual interaction and exposure.
Anyway we still cannot judge the matter until we see the fruits of this newly introduced type of learning.
In 2007-08 about 0.8 million, or 4 percent of all undergraduates, took their entire program through distance education. These numbers are impressive, but even more so when you factor in the rate of growth. A recent study found that the popularity of online colleges is growing exponentially in relation to standard brick-and-mortar institutions – in fact, it’s a ratio of more than 10 to 1.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/655/traditional-education-vs-online-education-should-you-switch/
In education new trends should come to add and never to replace an existing one. Other areas are not so reluctant to changes as in pedagogy. We have atlas to study physiology. Using a computer to study one can see much better pictures, videos with that organ at work, sound and a lot more. If we teacher were a little bit more open to new methods, technologies we would grow as medicine, physics, dentistry and others. Architects for example had to have manual abilities to draw, today they would have to manage drawing programs to work. Some professions have nothing to do with the activity from which they were created. Why teaching has to be so close to what was done by the Greeks so many years ago?
In my opinion, online education will be become more and more popular but, it never replace traditional classroom. They only diversify and perfect each other.
Yes my dear. As the time progress online or distance education will increase exponentially. As very well mentioned by Prof. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan ·and Dr. András Bozsik the reasons of its benefits and popularity, it is going to be a chepest source of education and fulfill the dream of large population wants to educate themselves with their other field of works.
Regards
The advantages of online education is that students always have a chance to revisit the class, but the effect or feel for a class room based education is totally different. Class room education is two way information flow (possibly) where as online is just one sided. From students prospective, it would be better to clear any doubts as and when it comes which is possible in class room.
But on the other hand online courses helps those who can't afford or those who don't have the liberty to attend these class room based education. Also one can get additional information and can also broaden his knowledge base by the utilization of various online lectures on the same topic by different universities/professors, which a class room system can't provide.
Because of rapid development in the field of technology, in the future online education will become more popular than traditional education. But I don't think this will suppress the traditional class room based education.
Regards,
Rajesh.
Both online and traditional methods of teaching are important. Though new generation is using online methods more. It may due to digital divide. Online method will grow more in future.
- Most employers believe there is a niche for online education, especially for older students.
- At the same time, many employers remain skeptical of the quality of online programs compared to traditional programs.
- Many employers feel online programs require extra discipline from students
http://www.publicagenda.org/files/notyetsold_publicagenda_2013.pdf
Who knows, perhaps Blended (Hybrid) Learning will become the most popular? Despite the online technology available, in other areas of life for example, people still go to movie theaters, concerts, and go shopping in physical stores and malls/shopping centers. I feel many students would still ideally choose traditional education if they did not have to worry about costs, transportation, living expenses, etc. There are published articles and surveys, where students have responded slightly in favor of face-to-face learning and still regard face-to-face education as better in some ways (example link below). I think our human nature is to try to have the best of both worlds if we could. Online education and educational technology are here to stay. But due to the social nature of people and some of the ways that we learn, I guess blended learning will be a popular middle ground. Blended is the way many traditional universities and schools have been moving in the last few decades. Finally, the answer might also depend on the subject being studied or taught... Thanks for the interesting question!
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no1/fortune_0311.pdf
Talented teachers will never be substituted with machine-like creatures. However instead of having bud teachers is betters to have very good machine tutors!
No, it will always be a supplementary kind of education, since the personal contact cannot be overcome by a distance learning technique.
Hybrid courses will become more popular!
Hybrid courses blend the best of face-to-face classes with online learning. instructors can achieve their course objectives more successfully than online course.
This type of course combines both online and face-to-face instruction in varying ratios. Many say that a course must be at least 50% online to be considered a “true” hybrid course. However, in practical application this definition is limiting as there are many ways to successfully combine the two types of instruction. . Time traditionally spent in the classroom is reduced, but not eliminated.
@ Demetris
In India, even Distance learning also has certain specified number of contact classes like regular stream (but not the same number of classes) during the weekends and holidays
I think, the second, third education can be productive, because the auditorium is highly interested in learning, getting a first degree and having thirst for knowledge, successfully combining work and studying.Nevertheless, it's so wonderful to communicate with real persons.We attest our teachers on-line, but they have to specialize in courses face-to-face.
Yes in the future online education will become more popular than traditional education, I am using e learning at our university and its very nice.
Online education is the need of today era and becoming popular now a days,,,,,but....the standard of online education never match with the traditional once,in view of teaching,efforts, interaction or two way interaction,concentration levels of students, discipline,and on so on many things....
Online education will become more popular than traditional education
for the following advantages
- Supports self learning
- Any time learn
- no "peer pressure" during learning
A survey shows that number of online students Grows
Although enrollment at traditional brick-and-mortar schools has slowed down, the number of online students is still growing.
The Babson survey revealed that online students have increased by 9.3 percent. More than 6.7 million post-secondary students have taken an online course—roughly one-third of all post-secondary students.
Other survey highlights include:
- Nearly 70 percent of all higher education institutions reported online education was critical to their long-term strategy
- The online enrollment growth rate of 9.3 percent is the lowest recorded in the Babson report series
- However, the proportion of all students taking at least one online course is at an all-time high of 32 percent
- Only 30.2 percent of chief academic officers believe their faculty accept the value and legitimacy of online education—lower than the rate recorded in 2004
- 77 percent rated the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face
http://www.geteducated.com/latest-online-learning-news-and-research/527-moocs-online-learning-survey
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