Is online learning for you?

Online Education is here, it's easy and it works.

Why learn online?
When you compare online learning to traditional learning, there are many attractive benefits. Whether we want to learn for personal satisfaction, to enhance our personal career, or to prepare for a new one, all of us are finding ourselves in a life long learning cycle. The flexibility and cost effectiveness of online learning makes it very attractive to everyone from busy professionals to stay-at-home parents. Inconveniently regimented class schedules and the associated hassles of getting on and off campus (where just parking can be a pain) can double the amount of time it takes from a busy home or office day. On top of that you have the added expense of parking, gas, and food. Also, the inflexible schedule cuts across and through the demands of work, family, and entertainment. The set location on a set schedule just makes things too difficult. Correspondence courses, based on snail-mail, overcome some of these problems, but the month or more between doing an assignment and learning the results plays havoc with learning. Making the same omissions and errors for many weeks while you're waiting to find them out is counterproductive and discouraging. Correspondence takes so much self-discipline and is also a solitary lonely learning experience.

Let's look at an example
Susan is an Information Design specialist in California. She wants to tweak her skill set so that she can command a higher salary in her profession (or, in lots of cases, has to tweak it to keep current in her job!). She spends a week researching courses that would help her meet her goals. Finally, she finds one that is perfect - on topic, relevant and certified! - except it's in New York and its three months long. Well this class may be perfect for that 20-year-old commitment-free student on site, but it's no use to Susan. She has job requirement to fulfill and a family to support. The class sequence is far too long and the distance is far too great.

Along comes online education and whoosh, say 'bye' to the problem. Now all Susan has to do is log on to the Internet and learn the very same material, but at her own pace. Online education offers people like Susan the same opportunities as those who are free to sit in a classroom. But it also does a lot more. Susan becomes part of a community. Even four years ago academics worried that online education would 'stultify learning', create a generation of cyber-zombies, isolate learners and 'take the intellectual stuffing out of education'. Quite the reverse has happened. That 'Library' that loomed so large as the mark of a 'Great Institution' suddenly shrank to the size of a keyboard. In fact, it's easier to browse the larger electronic library of that New York institution online than to fight through traffic and weather to try to use it. And often the online librarian is faster and more precise than his or her counterpart behind the desk!

But what about Susan's fellow students? Well, the class includes lots of interesting people, like Susan, who couldn't attend the classroom any more than she could. They come from all over North America and often from further than that. They bring their worlds with them - new companies, new processes, personal and social preferences, ideas and backgrounds. 'Talking' is often easier because one can look at email and respond more thoughtfully than in a conversation. The instructors often become much more friendly and effective, because their answers too are simply smarter.

Are Susan's colleagues nicer? Probably. Intemperate or inappropriate behavior, unsympathetic demands or responses, idiosyncrasies and complaints, all can be dealt with by the instructor, privately, with an appropriate degree of explanation. As well, there is always the option of a more public display of a 'flame' - an email with too angry an expression - to other members for their comments. So people generally show both more involvement with others on course topics and more comfortable, acceptable expression than students in a conventional class are even able to do.

So Susan's comfort levels are high. She works as she can on a general schedule - five hours one night, none on the next two. She has her research facilities literally at her fingertips. Instructors respond to her questions - all her questions - with the answers she needs to continue. She participates in the discussions that interest her and help her to better understand her work. She begins to realize that she has a big talent pool, much larger than just the Instructor group, of her fellow students because many have experience with areas of her job needs that are directly relevant to her studies and her employment. She's even trading career ideas and work problems with a sympathetic and helpful bunch of folk she'll keep in touch with for years to come. It sure beats those impossible three months in New York!

Is online education for everyone?
Yes and No. Not everyone learns in the same way. It may also be more relevant at one stage of your life than at another. It's not either/or; it's mix-and-match. And you don't have to give up one to do the other. Online education works best when an individual is:

If you are like the individual described above, you will excel in online courses.

How could you tell if the course will be good?
Good institutions' courses have these features: