Online Distant Learning Is Not Beneficial Essay

We, as humans, fear the unknown, and change is after often at the root of our fears. One of the greatest catalysts for change is today’s rapid technological development, but the concept of traditional education has always been the same. Even that is changing, and as to be expected, there is a substantial amount of fear and apprehension towards distance education. With this, students are presented the chance to overcome of a

“Can You Be Educated from a Distance,” an insightful essay by James Barszcz, brings to focus some of the benefits and disadvantages of Distance Learning education (DL). In it, Barszcz discusses the mechanics of DL courses available to students, the quality of education DL can offer, and some reasoning behind its rapidly growing popularity. “Can You Be Educated from a Distance” is an engaging article that students of all ages can benefit from.

Many advocates of distance education are ardent about their venue and very critical of traditional education. These online education devotees view traditional classes as being unchangeable, inflexible, teacher-centered, and static (Angiello, 2010). However, proponents argue that many simply would not be able to get a degree without distance education—the full-time police officer, the mother of four, or the individual living in a rural area approximately 100-200 miles away from any educational institution. Many individuals desperately need distance education courses because they "have jobs, families, civic responsibilities. They are thirsting. But some want us to say, 'Sorry you don’t want to drink the water there, but we can’t bottle our fresh spring water, so you’ll have to come here or drink nothing" (Baker, 1986). Proponents contend that distance education is "as good as" traditional education. In other words, learning occurs as much in distance education as it does in traditional education. However, is this really so? Does distance education work better for some students

To summarize, the topic presented in this article is about online courses which are widely used in colleges providing easy access to course materials, classroom discussions, and feedback to instructors. The course materials and activities may be accessed from any computer, whether it is from the University or from the comfort of your own home.

With time it becomes the necessity of our lives because much of our work depends on it. By using internet we can easily to different educative resources and get wide knowledge about our courses, Internet provides us updates about the news or information. It provides us opportunity to learn new things by taking online courses. It is more effective than offline courses due to many reasons such as online learning has a flexible pattern, we can access to more learning resources. Moreover we have access to online courses any time and anywhere where we feel comfortable this increase our focus and it is also cost effective or free of cost effective education while taking offline courses do not provides us these benefits therefore we relay on the online courses. It provides us a better and free of cost communication channel due to which we can take help from others about any issue faced in learning

Distance learning (education) has become an integral part of the education process over the past few decades and is growing in popularity as technology advances.(Willis 1992) describes distance education (as) "the organizational framework andprocess of providing instruction at a distance. Distance education takes place when ateacher and student(s) are physically separated, and technology…(is) used to bridge theinstruction gap." (Coutts 1996). Furthermore, "distance learning activities are designedto fit the specific context for learning, the nature of the subject matter; intended learningoutcomes, needs and goals of the learner, the learner's environment and the instructional echnologies and methods." (American

Learning is more than just receiving information. Traditionally learning was to be in campus, where students would interact with one a another, there were no other ways for learners to get educated beside going to the classroom and listening to the instructor. Nowadays the Internet has brought different ways for people to receive information, such as getting education and degrees online. A few years ago online education was never thinkable, and yet it has become to reality and it is widely expanding with popularity. Online education is a type of educational instruction that delivers learning to individuals to their own homes, and it is getting very popular among nontraditional student and others. Individuals prefer online education

Distance learning is not the best way to receive instruction. It could be that my bias is for traditional classroom learning because that is all that I have know all my life. I cannot fully comprehend how effective can learning over the Internet truly be. However, at the same time we have to focus on why some students decide that taking a web course is the best choice for them.

Those contemplating distance learning should think about whether they have or can achieve good time management skills. They must also make sure they have Internet access which is required to take classes in this way.

Online education is a type of distance learning. The student is taking courses without attending a school or university. Instead, online students and teachers interact over the Internet. Online classes can teach students educational responsibility. By forcing them to access the online portal to participate in reading the textbooks/lectures and doing the assignments. Technical abilities is also learned with online classes. Students who lack the tech savvy knowledge can learn how to navigate through the online environment. Being able to access the online portal at any given time of the day is one other benefit to online education. Though online education may seem beneficial, there are more negatives than

In online courses and programs, it is difficult for students to understand the communications without gestures and facial expressions which can convert feeling and meaning (Isman and Altinay, 2005:140). Dabaj (2011:1) illustrates the distance education exists communication barriers in physical distance between individuals. Students are taking online courses alone, without interaction with teachers and peers. In fact, when they come up with some questions, they cannot ask the teachers and get answers immediately. It is because there is a long distance between students and teachers and students can only interact in a chat room by Internet (Isman and Altinay, 2005:152), this can be regarded as distance barriers (Lunenburg, 2010:4). Additionally, the online courses can be affected by the quality of Internet or out of electricity. Online courses depend on the high-technology devices, so when the Internet signal is bad or computers stopped abruptly, the online course will stop. Overall, physical barriers can be caused between students and teachers through online courses and programs.

Because of the Internet, new ways of teaching and learning has evolved. The term “distance learning” refer to accessing information with a computer and modem from sources that may be located thousands of miles away. Many colleges and other organizations now includes distance learning courses in their curriculum. Some people even earns their college degrees through distance learning, without ever being on the campus of the university. The distance learning teacher usually post information for students to access and sometimes gives a real-time lecture – in written form, of course. Interactive communication between teacher and students are also possible. A chat room with restricted access works well for this purpose. Special message boards also allows students to post questions. Students uses e-mail to send in their written assignment and also receive comments from the instructor by e-mail. Although some people complains that distance learning lacks the personal touch, others

Distance learning does not replace the existing classroom; rather it has proven to be an effective and useful tool in expanding the elementary school curriculum. Distance learning is defined as the “education for students working at home, with little or no face-to-face with teachers and with material provided remotely, for example through email, television, or correspondence” (Encarta World English Dictionary, 2001). The concept of distance learning has been around for centuries, evolving from primarily correspondence courses, to the Internet and two-way audio and video connection that are used now to establish a connection between the teacher and the

In Sahin’s research (2008), he was trying to find if the selection of technologies chosen for online learning could be used to reflect learners’ preferences and related characteristics. According to the research among 279 students in five online undergraduate courses, the Moore’s Transactional Distance Theory may connect with Kolb’s theory, which means three dimensions learning may link with two-dimensional views of individual learning styles. At last, the author recommends combining the all dimensions learning technologies to meet learning requirements.

Education is also been effected by this global network. There are many online organizations that provide an online access to educational materials. For example Khan Academy which is a non-profit organization created in 2006, with a goal of providing a collection of online tools to improve students that seek for these materials. It features over 2,100 educational videos for basic math problems like 1+1=2 to a college level calculus and physics (the next web). These online educational tools are not just nation wise but also on a global level. For example a student can register for a summer online class at HCC and spend his whole summer overseas, the internet enable him to have fun with his vacation with making sure he will be able to do all the assigned assignments for his class. Distance learning (DL) depends totally on the Internet and the World Wide Web. And could not be operated without it. Advantages of delivering distance learning on the Internet include the following: place and time flexibility; potential to extend and reach a global audience; used with mostly any electronic; quick and easy updating of content; and usually lower cost for operating. (Kerka, Sandra, ERIC.edu). Before the internet era, books were the only source of information, so if a student wanted to write a paper for his class, he had to look in different libraries for books that contains concepts related to his argument. This will take time and effort. The internet came with a new sets of actual books and articles, but in the form of an online documents. These online books are trustful and garneted for the most part. Results from a survey of 236 students over 2 years showed that the Internet can facilitate a good educational practices. Students believe that the use of email to contact encouraged an active learning environment. They also believe that the Internet materials allow more efficient use of time in and out of the classroom, and improve their learning. (Michael E. Ritter, Taylor & Francis online). English is the most popular language, and many people from all around the world use the internet for online classes to learn this language. The English proficiency test TOEFL for example, which is a Test of ETS (English as a Foreign