Implications for Today’s Online Educators Essay

In conclusion, all indicators point toward active participation in online discussion a major factor in the final grade a student may receive. All stakeholders, including the facilitator, need to be actively involved at a high cognitive level. This activity increases trust that must be built within a community of learners.

Their primary findings was that participation and communication is certainly a requirement for successful completion of online courses. When instructors are involved and encourage students to participate it motivates students to not give up or drop the class. They were able to classify students into different categories, and they found these types of students in the online class:

engage and learn even when not taking part in online discussions. The context of this

Godwin, S. J., Thorpe, M. S. & Richardson, J. T. E. (2008). The impact of computer-mediated

From this study, results of both success and failure were discovered and documented. From the aspect of success, the following results were found: First, classes that had online discussion helped students that would normally be introverts in a traditional class, to be active in discussions. Second, this type of class helped to improve

With the goals of contributing to the understanding of distance education, professional practices, and their own learning within an online and distance environment, students in MDDE 601 participate in a series of online discussions. In this brief essay I will compare a sample set of my own MDDE 601 discussion posts against a provided grading rubric, in order to assess the functional and substantive qualities of my posts, as well as my engagement with the course content and fellow students.

In today’s society, so many people are continuing their education beyond high school. We realize that in order to make a decent living, a degree is most likely a requirement. In some cases even a bachelor’s degree is not enough to qualify for many positions. Nevertheless, thanks to technology, we now have the option to learn online or in a traditional classroom setting. There are very few differences between the two, and students need to understand that as much time and energy will need to be devoted to the online courses as on a campus. “A 2010 meta-analysis and review of online-learning studies concluded that online learning was as good as or slightly more effective than traditional face-to-face instruction” (Mendenhall, 2011).

Despite these problems, e-learning has already established a strong foothold, albeit as an adjunct to traditional, instructor-led teaching. The main success in e-learning, is the improved standard of support that students receive. [Sydney

However, advocates of classroom learning believe the online method isolates the students from one another as well as their professor minimizing the overall value of taking the course. They also claim that students learn better when working together with their instructor and their fellow classmates. Students learn better when they are given the opportunity to ask questions, join in class discussions, and they move the process of learning forward through their participation. Face-to-face advocates firmly believe that this kind of interaction is not possible over the Internet; and for many types of education, e-learning will never meet the potential of live human interaction in the classroom. An article in the New York Times titled, “Second Thoughts on Online Education,” backs up the points made above. A recent research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, comes to the conclusion; “A rush to online education

Technology is changing every aspect in our lives, even the way we learn. Online classes are a rapidly growing trend it today’s society. Online classes are a cost-effective substitute for traditional courses and more convenient for many, so more schools and universities are offering this option. Due to the increase in online course enrollment, people are questioning if students truly learn something from online classes because it’s not a traditional learning environment. Online classes are just, if not more, effective as traditional classes because grades have increased and online discussions provide students with the chance to interact through networking while earning a degree for less than what it would cost to enroll at the same university.

Furthermore, the internet damages students’ interpersonal skills. Social media and instant messaging are major communication tools for students, which lead them to have few opportunities to talk in person. Recently, a multi-functional cell phone can replace a computer with internet access. There is a study in England that found that almost forty-percent of students surveyed said they could not live without their cell phones (Birdwell, 2007). Also, nearly ten-percent of students said that using cell phones caused them to lose their relationships and jobs (2007). Besides, through online education, students cannot get face-to-face instruction from professors and also lose their chances to communicate with classmates.

Education has undergone significant changes because of the development of information and communication technology over the 21st century (Lin & Jou, 2012:2). As a convenient and inexpensive way to gain knowledge while pursuing higher education, online learning, a form of training or teaching that takes place over the Internet, has been considered as an alternative to traditional classroom learning (Zhang et al, 2004). This essay will argue that even though online learning has benefit such as flexibility which could outweigh traditional learning, traditional classroom learning might still not be entirely replaced. This essay will discuss positive and negative aspects of online and traditional learning in terms of four criteria:

Education is an important part of people’s lives; it will either make them or break them in the future depending on the careers they choose. Education is greatly diverse today in comparison to the 1950s because of advancements in teaching and other great inventions that provide easier techniques of teaching. One major issue that has been raised is distant learning courses and online education.

E-Learning is trying to provide a more individualized, self-paced, self-directed learning experience (Clark). A survey by a Sociology Professor at CSU-Northridge showed that students in his virtual class performed 20% better than students in his traditional class (Clark). On the other hand, issues concerned with E-Learning includes the fact that students may not be as motivated since, another survey found out that only 66% of the students involved with E-Learning earned credit with a passing grade for their classes (Washington

Online teaching is defined as any educational activity that requires a student to complete some learning or assessment activity via a personal computer and a connection to a network (Murdoch University Academic Council 1999). This network connection is usually to the Internet (Demirdjian 2002). It is a seen by the Murdoch University Academic Council as a teaching and learning technology, not a method of study (2002), but this depends on how it is to be used and by whom. For example, distance education student using online teaching would be more inclined to see it as a study method than a QUT student who uses online teaching to download and print lecture notes to attend a lecture on campus.