Final Essay- Compostion 106

THE ONLINE LEARNING REVOLUTION

“The future is outside the traditional campus, outside the traditional classroom. Distance learning is coming on fast.”
-Peter Drucker

Like the business world, the field of education is always changing and adapting. Often, this change is inspired by an alteration in demographics of students and these students’ varying needs. The average student of today is older and busier than their predecessors. They often juggle education along with families, jobs, and other responsibilities. With these full schedules it is difficult for the modern student to fit in a traditional on-campus education. The education field has met this problem with a fresh response- online learning. Through online courses, students can create a schedule to meet their needs and fit into their schedules. Additionally, online learning is broadening the educational field by introducing new opportunities to make students more globally conscious and by connecting the best teachers to the right students.

The collective demographics of college students have changed considerably from college students of twenty years ago. Where the typical college student of the 80’s was between 18 and 22 years old, today, colleges and universities are catering to a new college student; one who is 23 years or older, married with children, and employed full-time. In light of this change, online learning appears to offer the "non-traditional" student a practical alternative to on-campus courses. These patterns were witnessed firsthand by Professor Daria S. Heinemann, the Lead Speech Instructor at the Keiser University eCampus. Over her years teaching, she has witnessed this progression of popularity in online courses and documented it in an interview saying:

We are a ‘Now generation’. We are the ‘instant gratification’ generation. We want things now, or whenever we want them. This means that taking a class on Mondays at 6 pm no longer fits our schedule, so we want to be able to take it on Tuesday at 3 am or Friday at 12 noon – whenever we feel it is convenient. Technology allows us to do that. Online learning allows access to education to anyone and everyone. People who work full-time and have families can now attend classes and receive quality education.

In addition to increasing the convenience of education, online learning has opened up the education field to a variety of new opportunities. Previously, colleges and universities were confined to only employ teachers who live close enough to travel to their campus every day. However, through distance learning, schools can now employ teachers globally, picking from an expansive pool of the best teachers available. Furthermore, schools are given the opportunity to reach more students. Rather than limiting their marketing to local students only, a school offering online programs can include students internationally. This broadening of the educational field simultaneously benefits the students and schools by connecting each student to their choice school and program of study. For instance, should a student live in the United States and have an interest in studying Music Theory, Pop Culture, and The Beatles, they would essentially have to move to Liverpool in order to receive a degree in The Music of The Beatles. However, online education is working to bring programs of greatly varying interests to the students who are attracted to them, without ever having to leave their home.

In addition to broadening the variety of courses and programs offered, online learning works to supplement traditional classes in innovative ways; for instance, by connecting Language students to native speakers of the given language they are studying. Through online courses, a student in a Spanish class can connect with other students in Spanish speaking countries and gain important real world practice. Shirish Nadkarni, co-founder of an e-learning Web 2.0 platform called Livemocha, recognized the necessity of this feature in Language Education:

The challenge that we saw was most of the current learning methodologies do not result in good learning outcome, my kids have been learning Spanish for a number of years in both middle school and high school. They get good grades, but if you ask them to carry on a conversation, they can't really do that. To become proficient in a language, you need to be able to interact with native speakers. You need to be able to practice.

Online education easily provides that opportunity for practice through the utilization of international multi-lingual chat rooms and web-based learning programs in place of or as supplements to on-campus learning.

In the case of language studies especially, the educational community still sees online learning as a supplement to on-campus education. However, with the rapid expansion of online educational opportunities and the increasing rate at which entire programs are being offered online, it is unclear where the online revolution will end. Some analysts predict that eventually the entire educational field will be based on online learning. This drastic change would reasonably hold many benefits as well as a few draw backs. Some benefits might include lower tuition rates. Because universities would no longer have to buy property, purchase insurance, pay electricity bills, etc., they would be able to offer their classes at a much lower expense to themselves and consequently their students. Additionally, computer based education helps develop a comfort with technology and an imperative understanding of the online community that will aide students once they enter the work force.

On the other hand, there is also a sizeable opposition to this education revolution. As is true in the case of any major societal shift, there is an ample collection of people who are somewhat hesitant of the change. Should universities ever make a complete shift to online learning, what will be the disadvantages? One disadvantage many are concerned about is how the lack of face-to-face communication between teachers, students, and classmates will hinder a student’s necessary growth of people skills in college. Through online degree programs students miss out on important aspects of college life hindered on campus life such as socializing and networking. Furthermore, online courses tend to include much less supervision therefore one’s success in online programs is largely hinged on self-motivation and organizational skills. While this sort of educational environment may be incredibly useful in training grad students for the workforce, it might be slightly unrealistic for college freshman accustomed to a highly supervised high school setting.

At this stage, it seems somewhat unlikely that online learning could ever fully replace traditional on-campus programs. However, with technology continually advancing, online courses are working as integral supplements to our current education system, introducing revolutionary opportunities and transforming the classroom daily.