Online learning SUCKS!

The pursuit of distance education can nurture our occupational ambitions, long term financial health, and social environment. As a distance learner with personal and financial interests in japan , I am analyzing potential untapped markets in the Tokyo region. If I establish a business in Japan, time will be scarce. Distance Learning is geographically mobile and a flexible allocator of time.

Instead of competing with others, search for markets and populations that are under-served. If I worry about billions of people competing for a job, it will dampen my ambition and creativity.

You can use the billions of people, and turn it into a business or employment opportunity. Distance Learning is a wonderful place to network and building ties with people is golden.

 

Well, if you want to get technical, you could argue that the automobile was invented in the 18th century, as the following quote illustrates:

In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was a military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (1725 - 1804). Cugnot used a steam engine to power his vehicle, built under his instructions at the Paris Arsenal by mechanic Brezin. It was used by the French Army to haul artillery at a whopping speed of 2 1/2 mph on only three wheels. The vehicle had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to build up steam power. The steam engine and boiler were separate from the rest of the vehicle and placed in the front (see engraving above). The following year (1770), Cugnot built a steam-powered tricycle that carried four passengers (from a website on the history of the automobile)

However, I think we can all agree that the automobile became popularized in the early 20th century.


Just as distance learning is becoming popularized in the early 21st.

 

Well, the U.S. is a little slow to adopt change. We still use the English system while a lot of other countries have moved to the metric system.

 

REALLY resistant to change!

"... a lot of other countries"?

Try all but three!

United States, Liberia, and Myanmar (Burma)

[Sorry, former science teacher here!]

 

OK, but ...

As the Wikipedia articles indicate, many countries still use metrified versions of common units.

That is not the same, however, as an industrialized nation (some would argue THE industrialized nation) refusing to join with pretty much the rest of the world in a more logical and understandable system of measurement just because we can.

The point here, as with the resistance to distance learning that other countries have embraced for some time, is that arrogance is not the same thing as superiority as the US would assert.

 

I remember about 15 or so years ago, America decided it would go metric. Metric signs started appearing...and then the whole thing was dropped after a few months.

 

Re: Re: Objections to Online Learning

To piggy back on this point, your professor has an old school ideology. Case and point, I've noticed where I work the generation before us still believes in working everything out long hand on paper; they are scared to death of the technological computer age. Our generation ( i'm 30 by the way) adapts just fine b/c we know the effenciency of computers to our lives well-being. For that professor to say online learning is not real learning is sick. Anytime you pick up a book, magazine, journal and discover a fact you did not know before is learning. His statement is non valid in every sense. I attend UMUC currently, I have only taken one class but I have learned a temendous amount of information in that class. The individuals that think that way about DL are a dying breed and will soon fall to the waste side. I appreciate DL because it enables me to focus on my career and an advanced degree.

M.S. Human resources University Maryland University College (in progress)
B.S. Agriculture/Agronomy University Arkansas Pine Bluff

 

I agree with your post, jk. The reality is that some people resist change. They are happy with the status quo. Since the last part of the 20th century non-traditional education has coexisted with traditional education and now they not only coexist but also supplement each other. Most major B&M universities now offer some form of DL and many students complete their degrees taking a combination of traditional and non- traditional classes.

The bottom line is that neither is better nor worse than the other. They are just different.

I would apply the same logic to the infamous debate about RA and NA. Each serves a purpose, and in the 21st century they can also coexist and supplement each other.

Pepe

 

I agree. Having taught in both environments, I'll add that it is easy to make online learning more rigorous than classroom learning, because the discussions are all written. Looking like you are awake isn't enough to demonstrate attendance in the online modality.

Dave

 

Ah, very true!