[URL="http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-education-revolution-drifts-off-course"]NPR Story[/URL]
[quote=NPR]One year ago, many were pointing to the growth of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, as the most important trend in higher education. Many saw the rapid expansion of MOOCs as a higher education revolution that would help address two long-vexing problems: access for underserved students and cost.
In theory, students saddled by rising debt and unable to tap into the best schools would be able to take free classes from rock star professors at elite schools via Udacity, edX, Coursera and other MOOC platforms.
But if 2012 was the "Year of the MOOC," as The New York Times famously called it, 2013 might be dubbed the year that online education fell back to earth. Faculty at several institutions rebelled against the rapid expansion of online learning — and the nation's largest MOOC providers are responding.[/quote]
It's because lazy people are lazy whether they are in a classroom or not.
If someone doesn't want to do work, did anyone really think that putting them into an environment where they can literally do nothing and get away with it would be beneficial?
I haven't had any good experiences with online classes
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;43380341]I haven't had any good experiences with online classes[/QUOTE]
I had a good Russian History course online where the teacher actually cared about the students and what they were learning. They had recorded lectures though, I can't imagine a course that is all just power points or something.
The only bad thing about it was that it was a course over the winter break and the teacher compressed a semesters worth of material in that month.
Schools in Florida now require students to take at least a half credit through an online school. It sucks. It's basically flash powerpoints and the only role of the teacher is to grade and the student has to talk to the teacher after each lesson and the teacher assesses the student. You can google every answer, hell most projects (99% of the work are projects) are also online, free for one to use and modify slightly. I can see where online instruction can be great, maybe in a more interactive setting or more personal setting, but the one I have experienced was awful.
People don't put effort into these online classes because they don't get anything out of them. If there was a real, for credit, test at the end I would bet loads of money that a massive number of students would start switching over from brick and mortar schools.
I've considered taking one or two online courses but always decided against it. There's just no way in hell I'd be able to get anything done. I could barely function in a classroom with a teacher breathing down my neck, if I've got pornhub sitting in my bookmarks taunting me...
Despite that, I've really fallen into autodidactism. I know it isn't the greatest thing in the world, because you don't get qualifications for it, but being able to learn the bits you want when you want with zero pressure is fucking amazing. I'd never have gotten as far as I have with German in the past year if I needed to deal with a preinvented curriculum.
I don't think I would be able to do online classes unless they have a video of each class recorded - I learn a lot just from attending class, having more than one modality of learning really helps.
I've had major problems with online courses recently. It's all to be blamed on the professors.
One of my online summer classes had a system where "go ahead and do the work whenever, just do it before the end of the semester". Apparently my professor has been grading certain assignments even though I haven't turned them in yet, with a 100% on that course. Sure, it's a grade, but I did not put any effort into that assignment as I had not done it yet.
And then there's my next online professor recently that ended the course without grading certain assignments, but I left that course with an A anyways, because an ungraded assignment doesn't count towards your grade.
I've been graded positively for no effort, and I wasn't graded for effort. I have been encountering lazy pieces of crap professors online. Makes me feel like I could get a lot more out of these classes than what I encountered.
Online classes, otherwise are a nice experience as long as the professor is dedicated to the cause, just like they should be in a physical class. Mine haven't been, sadly enough.
Edgenuity was the only real online site I've been able to competently use, though taking a portion of english on it frustrated the hell out of me. Interpretations and shit, no you have to think this way. That's a problem with High School english in general though.
Online classes are the fucking worst, absolutely no one in my class actually likes them.
The teachers don't like it, the only people who like it are the people making money from the colleges.
I've found that I mostly end up teaching myself the class regardless of a professor's capability to lecture. I don't mind online courses though I have taken few. I am in school mostly for the degree and with online courses I don't have to worry about professor's bantering on forever in a lecture. I have the material and I know what to do with it.
Of course this doesn't work with every student or subject and a lot of them appreciate the role of the professor to walk them through the material.
[quote] Faculty at several institutions rebelled against the rapid expansion of online learning [/quote]
Worried about their careers? I still believe online education is the future and universities will fight tooth and nail to prevent education from being free or at least more affordable.
Online education can be beneficial. But it still requires student and teacher input. If one side does not contribute the entire foundation is ruined.
Side note:
Khan Academy is a good supplement, it doesn't really have 'online courses', but it is good for tutorials and revision on a vast range of subjects.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;43380341]I haven't had any good experiences with online classes[/QUOTE]
I've taken two online courses and have had great, responsive teachers and ended up learning a lot and scoring over 90% in both of them while using up significantly less time than I would in a traditional classroom.
I guess the experience varies from person-to-person or school-to-school.
Haven't done any official-ish classes online, but have followed through many tutorial and example lessons.
I have dug into application walkthroughs, like for modeling packages and IDE introductions. But I have completely lazy-ed out on every math lecture (fuck quaternions, let the library handle it). I always get hung up on concepts the class expects me to already know.
I (and my projects) could certainly benefit from a structured learning environment. Books and YouTube can only take you so far.
I had to do a class on something called "My Math Lab" once.
It was a piece of shit.
[QUOTE=Oizen;43388097]I had to do a class on something called "My Math Lab" once.
It was a piece of shit.[/QUOTE]
My math lab is garbage.
My school used it for a year before switching to something else that is slightly less shitty.
It depends. Get a good course that mirrors a quality real one (for example, MIT 8.01x on edX) and you'll have a great time. There's a a lot of crap out there to filter through though.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;43380341]I haven't had any good experiences with online classes[/QUOTE]
I've been doing my entire 4 years of high-school online. Much better than going to an actual class. I still go to the school, but i don't get told what course to take or have deadlines for anything besides finishing the classes before the end of the semesters. Just finished up my second to last semester, gotta do 6 more classes and i can graduate with a diploma. This way i don't have to put up with teacher or other classmate's bullshit. I semi-failed 8th grade because i didn't trust any of the teachers, they were basically all assholes that year.
[QUOTE=valkery;43380307]It's because lazy people are lazy whether they are in a classroom or not.
If someone doesn't want to do work, did anyone really think that putting them into an environment where they can literally do nothing and get away with it would be beneficial?[/QUOTE]
At the same time, no college can teach you any information that you can't find on page 1 of google results, why pay many thousands of dollars per year for an official certificate when anyone can learn anything from almost anywhere. I think they realize this and are scared that it might put them out of a job in the future
My latest online course resulted in a C-. I had completed all assignments with 99+% but I kept emailing the teacher asking for clarification on subjective multiple choice questions ("which is the best view for viewing the flow of slides in powerpoint?" etc.) so he eventually learned to hate me. My final exam was never graded and I got an F. I took it up with the dean and they had a little talk, the teacher bumped it up to a C- after grading the multiple choice part of the exam but giving me a zero on the hands-on project. It was the only course I didn't get an A in.
[QUOTE=Oizen;43388097]I had to do a class on something called "My Math Lab" once.
It was a piece of shit.[/QUOTE]
Is that the Pearson pile of shit?
I had two courses on MyAccountingLab. It's quite possibly the worst thing ever created.
To do homework (e.g. assignments that let you retry) all you have to do is submit the assignment with no answers, it will show you the correct ones, then give you an option to print the assignment [i]with the correct answers[/i]. Print to a PDF, start the assignment again, and put in the correct answers. 100%
The exams were basically the same as the homework questions as well, although I had a lot of problems with it freezing Flash (the entire site is written in Flash) and I'd have to do the whole exam over again.
I also had a problem where the answers sometimes had to include cents and sometimes didn't, even though they were always 0 (e.g. I would put in 456 and it would mark me wrong, and say the correct answer was 456.00, even though the instructions explicitly stated to round to the nearest dollar).
MyMathLab is a dick because it always wants you to simplify answers. Which is perfectly acceptable except when your teachers don't require you to simplify on the exams. It's not nice when your homework and classwork aren't consistent.
[QUOTE=Protocol7;43391336]MyMathLab is a dick because it always wants you to simplify answers. Which is perfectly acceptable except when your teachers don't require you to simplify on the exams. It's not nice when your homework and classwork aren't consistent.[/QUOTE]
Usually when you take major exams they ask you to provide the final answer in it's most simplest form; that included with all your working out regardless.. Why would you do one or the other? Without both you don't get the full mark.
I've rarely had to simplify on exams. The teachers are more interested in your ability to work through a problem than to provide a simplified answer. If you're doing the math right then it shouldn't matter what form the answer is in, because shit like 2x/4x is still 1/2, even if it looks completely different.
Oh; that's a lot different from the priorities of the teachers here. Must be a English/American teaching difference. I do agree with what you're saying however; I remember a few times the teachers getting rather mad about not simplifying the answer to the point of it being completely wrong if it wasn't. Like what.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
