Online education:
is it for everyone?
By Zarela Cruz
Online education
has been promoted as “the latest tendency in education”. Therefore, many
institutions are tailoring their curricula so that they can incorporate an
online component. The question is, is it for everyone?
Going back to the
basics
To have the
complete picture, let’s go back to the basics. When online education started,
it was mainly used to offer short courses, and afterwards, both
certificates and diplomas. As far as I remember, the final exam had to be
face-to-face. Needless to say, students were mainly from Lima and only some of
them, from provinces. Materials and assignments were normally loaded beforehand
and the courses were well-structured, but something was missing: Instructors
made the difference: specially when it came to clarify doubts and reply
students within a reasonable waiting time. Eventually, upper education
institutions understood that to expand the target market, final exams should be
online too, and so the story began.
Is that the
solution we have been looking for?
This kind of
courses has been promoted as the solution in our busy llves: we can study at our own pace and most importantly, from
wherever we are. True, but not entirely. In Lima, access to internet is
much faster than in provinces, which is a restriction in itself. Working in
groups is not that easy, even when collaborative work does its share, On the
other hand, few courses can be completed at your own pace within a time limit
whilst most of them have a layout and each week you are expected to participate
in forums and do an assignment. Work at your own pace then? Yes, but
within some limits.
Too good to be true?
Do not get me
wrong. I do believe that online education can reach many more people and does
not need to be syncronic. In that sense, there have been attempts to provide
free education. Internationally, Coursera has a wide range of courses, and the
main advantage is that your paying a fee for taking a course is not compulsory,
although it is necessary to get an international certification. The price
is quite affordable. Too good to be true? In Lima, I know of
another attempt: Aula
Abierta which was an
initiative to donate knowledge, but did not last very much. Classes were quite
interesting. However, they were not part of a programme, just isolated lessons
from different courses.
Even high-reputed
universities like Cambridge University started to offer online courses a few
years ago and they have expanded their course range based on the positive
response. Even Harvard Universty has launched an online MBA and a virtual
classroom. This is not the only attempt. Yale University’s Business School and
other schools have tried out a live web-based classroom and the University of
San Diego went much further: they put students in a virtual world, like a video
game, where they can take seminars and interact! (see link below)
What now?
I am a firm
believer that there is a lot more to develop in this field and that their
findings will help to (re)design the online education in the coming years. But,
is it for everyone? Is it applicable in the teaching of languages, for example?
Do students at universities agree with having the online component in most of
their courses? What is behind this decision? Just being updated with technology
or increasing their profit? Is there an evaluation in terms of results
regarding quality of education in blended courses at universities? What do you,
dear reader, expect from online education as student yourself?
Leave a comment and
share your experience with us!
References:
What we are
learning from online education
Harvard launches
virtual-classroom students
Biodata
Zarela Cruz graduated from Ricardo Palma
University as a translator. She also finished her master’s degree studies
in Linguistics and took some specialization diplomas. During her 20 years’
teaching experience, she has been a teacher trainer in Huaraz and Ayacucho and
lectured in some Congresses for EFL teachers in Lima. In 2009 she designed materials
for a virtual reading course becoming a tutor shortly afterwards. Since then,
she has been taking online courses and certificates in Teaching and Learning in
Higher Education, Online, Hybrid and Blended Education and Working Adult
Education and a number of online courses such as: Academic Research, From
Teacher to Manager, Teacher of the 21st century among others. She is currently an online tutor.
