Responding to various views on Online Education

I just mentioned that I switched from my custom format to Blogger to write these columns. This is the first column that I actually write about online education. Perhaps I can start from responding to various views on online education today.

What is the value in an online education? I see college being useful and valuable based on the social connections that emerge and the atmosphere. You don't really get that from an online education, do you?

Source - AaronWall: Professor of Peanut Butter

I don't disagree with this, and in fact, I heard and read many of these comments. I also heard how expensive University of Phoenix's tuition is and how so many students filed lawsuits against Capella University because the university did not provide quality education that they promised to provide. There is probably a certain truth in what have been said about online education. However, I also believe that it's a bit silly to dismiss the value of online education just because it does not provide what education in physical classroom does not provide. Online education has made education much more accessible, and this is a fact; even if you live in a remote location, given the access to the internet, you can receive education. Even if you have kind of work schedule that you simply cannot arrange to go to school, you can receive education. Education that you receive is not exactly the same; in fact, it is probably fair to say that you receive less-quality education (if you only receive education via through online education alone). But this still does not change the fact that online education has fundamentally changed your accessibility to education.

Here's a more positive and progressive take on the internet and online education enabled by the internet.

• Education is about conversations.
• Schools consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
• Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
• Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
• People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.
• The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Source - Scott Adams

My take is that we have a long way to get to this point, but this is close to online education that I envision. Today's online education is probably not exactly about conversations; today's technology sets certain limitations. However, there are a lot of interactions in online education.

I'd like to start exploring online education here in the coming weeks.