I find it remarkable that for so long advocates of online
education have had to defend their position or ranking if you will in the
higher education realm. It baffles me that numerous reports have to be written
about the quality of online education and if it is really worth it or if it
works. I remember taking a class not long ago where I made the ultimate
confession…I had once been ashamed to admit that I earned my undergrad degree
from an online university (UMUC). Immediately, I began to get feedback from a
few classmates about how they felt the same way. We all agreed that times have
changed and that we thought people were beginning to change their mindset when
it came to online education.
Nancy Parker’s chapter in the book “The Theory and Practice of Online Learning” provides
insight on how people need to come to a happy medium of sorts and begin to
really reshape their thinking about the quality of learning that goes on in an
online environment. In the chapter she states, “Students and faculty alike need to be more open and to
promote capacities to analyze, interrelate, and communicate about facts gleaned
from network-based knowledge.” (Parker, 2008)
I could
not agree with Parker more. Although this book was published a few years ago, I
can still see that many people’s mindsets need to be changed about virtual
education. We all know that the
television show “The Jetsons” is no longer going to be “futuristic
entertainment” and will more than likely become our reality sooner or later. So
if that is indeed the future, why isn’t virtual learning and teaching taken
more seriously?
Parker,
Nancy. (2008). The Quality Dilemma in Online Education Revisited. Retrieved
from
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