OMDE 610 - Reflective Journal
Week Ten - November 13th - November 19th
The Quality of Online Education
The first two years of my undergraduate college career was obtained through attending evening face-to-face courses. The remaining time was though online courses. The only difference that I can see when comparing f2f courses to online courses is that the courseload does seem to be heavier in online courses, but I believe that is because our presence in the course has to be compensated through online discussions. In the f2f environment, participation requirements are met as we discuss the content that is presented in the course, and in the online environment, the discussions take place by posting our conversations to the designated conference areas in the classroom. The time that we don’t have to use in the f2f environment is the time that it takes to study the readings, and then post our responses to the conference area. The time that we use to prepare for those discussions is the equivalent to driving to school, and sitting in a classroom lecture.
Online learning is just as effective as f2f learning because the same concepts that are used in f2f learning are the same as those used in the online classroom. Those concepts are just used differently, and through the use of technology, and because the concepts are used differently, it would benefit the faculty and staff to be properly trained on how to present the content to their students. If faculty and staff aren’t properly trained on how to effectively present the content in an environment that is different, then they are likely to reject the new way of teaching as shown in the report (Allen & Seaman, 2010). More than likely, they will also fail to see the quality of online education. The lack of knowledge produces doubt and fear, and doubt and fear produces a lack in the quality of performance by the faculty and staff.
Reference:
Allen, E. & Seaman, J. (2010). Learning on demand: Online education in the united states, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/learning_on_demand_sr2010
