Distance Education

The idea of having a virtual school, or distance education, is an interesting one, but is it a good idea? As with most things, there are pros and cons of going to school on-line. With distance education, students are provided with the opportunity to have personalized instruction. Obviously, not all students are going to do equally well in all subject areas and with online education they can have one-on-one interaction with an instructor. This would help them to get instruction that is more tailored to their needs.

Another thing that would be good for students is that mentors and instructors are readily available. With regular schooling, this is not always the case. For instance, when school is out for the day and teachers and students go home, it is difficult to get a hold of teachers with any questions one might have. Some teachers allow you to call them at home, while others ask you to email them, but neither of these options compare to having an instructor or mentor constantly online waiting to answer any questions.

With distance education, all learning materials are provided for the students, including books, laptops, and printers. For students who would otherwise not be able to afford this equipment, this provides them with the opportunity to have it in their home. I did not find anything about paying tuition for these distance education courses, so I would assume that it is free education.

This type of education is a wonderful opportunity for students to get acquainted with technology that they may not otherwise get a chance to work with. Regular schooling does not always provide these same types of opportunities, at least not to the same extent. Technology is a major part of our society and is an important thing for students to be able to work with.

In public schools, all students take the same general classes. They must take certain Math, English, Social Studies, and History classes. While they may take extra classes in these areas or other electives, the schooling is not personalized to their interests. However, with distance education you can take courses specific to your interest area, allowing students more career-related education as opposed to general education.

Cons to distance education are:
*You couldn’t really test for knowledge because they could surf the internet for answers and then you wouldn’t know if they knew the material or if they just found it online.
*You couldn’t communicate with peers face-to-face, which means that you probably wouldn’t develop the same kind of friendships, you wouldn’t get the same social experience.
*Even though there are due dates, you do not have a teacher monitoring your progress, so you are on your own (which could also be good for some people).
*Some people may be too lazy to go to school, and use this as an excuse not to.
*Not a very large variety of learning experiences. Everything is online, testing, and assignment submission.

For some students it would be easier to determine their readiness to distance education than for others. Obviously, if a student was very responsible about getting their assignments in on time, they would appear to be ready for managing themselves for an online class. It would be more difficult to determine a student’s readiness if they often misbehaved and ignored teacher instruction. It would seem that they would not be ready to be have the responsibility of keeping themselves on track. However, it may be better for them because then they would be their own authority and do the assignments at their own pace. It is just really hard to say. You would probably just have to let the students test it out, and see how it goes.

To be able to teach an online school a teacher would need to have a broad understanding of technology. They would also need to learn how to make connections with their students since they would not have the face-to-face relationships that most teachers have with students.