ONLINE CLASSES

Welcome to the world of the virtual classroom.

Online learning is on the rise. According to a 2013 report by the Babson Survey Research Group, over 6.7 million post secondary students were enrolled in at least one online class in 2011, compared to only 1.6 million in 2002, and higher-education institutions continue to refine and enhance their online curriculum. In 2002, about 72 percent of these schools offered some form of online learning, and that number has steadily increased to nearly 87 percent in 2012. Colleges also have emphasized the creation of fully online degree programs, and 62 percent of the schools surveyed now award degrees entirely through distance education.

Education is going on-line. Though still in early adolescence, full of the growing pains that come from rapidly expanding technology, on-line learning is increasingly becoming a fact of life in American education.

Whether it's as (relatively) simple as a student using e-mail to ask a professor to clarify a point made during a lecture or as sophisticated as an entire class obtaining degrees without ever stepping foot in a real classroom or meeting each other face-to-face, the computerization of higher learning is well under way.

 Student demand is among the many factors contributing to the growth of online learning. Students are also seeking the opportunities for flexibility of scheduling and cost efficiency that online studies can offer.

The benefit of online courses is the flexibility that is allowed. The disadvantage is the lack of structure and discipline in an online environment compared to having to face the professor so unmotivated students may be more likely to drop out. As long as you know you can be the driving force behind your momentum in college and not rely on the professors to make you show up in class and take active interest, then you can succeed in an online atmosphere.

Students have on-line student lounges, where they meet and chat--but not in real time. Duke University's on-line program even has one chat lounge that locks out the professors, so students can vent as desired. Small-group discussions get hot and heavy, but not in real time and guest lecturers never have to leave their real-time homes.

Virtual education at the college level has exploded over the last decade, with one survey finding that about a third of all students today take at least one class online. The humanities, though, remain a relative rarity in the digital world.

Most online bachelor's degree programs offered by Illinois universities focus on practical or professional subjects, such as business, nursing or criminal justice. The National Center for Education Statistics found that only 14 percent of humanities majors take courses online, compared with 27 percent of computer science majors.

But aided by a grant meant to further such studies, the University of Illinois at Springfield designed online degree programs in three fields — English, history and philosophy.

Some Chicago-area students enrolled in the courses say their experiences have taught them that online education can be far more than just a convenient substitute for traditional classrooms.

    

A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and TAs. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.

University professors founded or helped to found all the companies that provide online platforms for serving MOOCs, the largest of which (Coursera, Udacity and edX) all have affiliations of one kind or another with Stanford. San Jose State University made headlines earlier this year by offering course credit for certain online classes hosted and administered by Udacity. California has consequently emerged as the front line in the MOOC wars, and the debate here seems likely to be repeated across the country. Here, academics defending traditional classroom-based college education are finding themselves pitted against cost-cutting administrators and government representatives (and even against their fellow academics, since many MOOCs consist of lectures and exercises developed and recorded by sometimes quite eminent professors from all over.)

The future of higher education online is, at present, clear as mud. Do Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs — college-level classes offered online through a number of corporate providers — offer students better tools for study, increased opportunities at lower cost? Can they provide access to higher education to those who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it? Or do these canned classes portend the selling out of American education to Silicon Valley profiteers?

Advantages and disadvantages

Key advantages of online classes include:

•     Improved open access to education, including access to full degree programs
•     Better integration for non-full-time students, particularly in continuing education,
•     Improved interactions between students and instructors,
•     Provision of tools to enable students to independently solve problems,
•     Acquisition of technological skills through practice with tools and computers.

Key disadvantages of online classes,

 that have been found to make learning less effective than traditional class room settings, include:

•  Potential distractions that hinder true learning,
• Ease of cheating,
• Bias towards tech-savvy students over non-technical students,
• Teachers' lack of knowledge and experience to manage virtual teacher-student interaction,
• Lack of social interaction between teacher and students,
• Lack of direct and immediate feedback from teachers,
•  Asynchronic communication hinders fast exchange of question,
•     Danger of procrastination

Coursera, an online-enrollment platform, is now offering education for millions of people around the world. A certification is consigned by Coursera for students who are able to complete an adequate performance in the course. Free online courses are administered by the website- fields like computer science, medicine, networks and social sciences are accessibly offered to pursuing students. The lectures are recorded into series of short videos discussing different topics and assignments in a weekly basis.

This virtual curriculum complement the curriculum taught in the traditional education setting by providing equality for all students, despite disability, and geographical location and socioeconomic status.