Possibilities and drawbacks of having college class online

Nowadays, lots of schools have developed the form of virtual education, or what we can describe as education and teaching topics throught the Internet. The Web, that started to appear in the early 90’s and that today is very popularly widespread all around the US (as we can’t say all around the world, because the most regions are poor and have not access to the Internet), is actually a very interesting tool for some issues, such as formal education. In some cases, there are networks formed by professionals in the area, that allow different classes of one school, located in different places, can share material and have interactions between every student. In other cases, there are courses offered directly as substitutes for going to school, becoming in actual college class online: students don’t go to school, they do it directly from home, or other locations. Still, this has not been very developed, and it is applied to very specific cases, in which students may have suffered an accident and need to be in bed for a long while; or for students that for some reason have to be abroad for a long time, and have to sit for school at a distance.

Yet the more used resource that Internet brings is what we can call “educational network”, a group of computers joined by wireless connections that permit that students can work together, in communities connected virtually, online. These happens in many schools and colleges, in which college class online are being held, taking advantage of every resource, planning activities between all the students, who can benefit from this kind of interactions. What we call “virtual campus” is also a result of the development of internet in educational issues. Many students can chat, via mail or sharing a webcam, they can also take some course and interact with teachers in a college online class course as if they were face to face, as they see them through a cam. Some critics are usually raised towards this system of education, but I think they are not being fair with a tool that has evolved perfectly round these last five years, and that offer today possibilities for lots of people who want to go to school but has not the possibility to do it phisically, so they take college courses online, taking advantage of Internet and the work networks that we mentioned for having college class online. Lots of investigations, from the nineties through here, have been developed, in the United States, but also in Europe and Latin America. García Canclini in Argentina , Martín Barbero in Colombia, David Buckingham in England, together with Polo Virno in Italy, are just some of the researchers that have brought different concepts to think the actual situation in which we are involved. Also Robert Castel has presented the terms “Information Society”, used to describe where we are: in a society where information flows, going from one place to another, from one computer to another, travelling not phisically but virtually, through the Internet, the World Wide Web.

What drawbacks can we mention for this type of education online? Well, the main one is that interaction face to face is not possible between students and teachers. That affects somehow the process of learning, as putting questions for any reasonable doubt that the student may have is different from putting them face to face: the student cannot see the tone of the answers, the gestures (unless they communicate via a webcam), the emphasis put on the phrases (even though they are able to listen to the phrases, emphasis can be lost in the absence of body interactions). This Is the main drawback, as education is much of interaction and asking questions. As a consequence, it is also difficult to discuss, to enter in a debate between student and teacher, or even between partners. In courses taken at distance, having college class online, It becomes absolutely impossible to share time with partners. It is all about learning contents and sitting properly for exams.

What should be put into consideration is if there are ways in which both traditional and college online classes can be combined. We think that this is not impossible, yet it has to be properly thought and planned. Nothing can be done out of the blue or in the spur of the moment: specific professionals should be designed to work on these issues, as they can bring about new types of interactions between these two systems of education. The importance of the Internet and the potentials of network groups should not be left aside, but also they are not to be raised as solutions that cannot be criticized. A proper judgement from professionals, both educators and workers involved in technology themes should be required and by doing this a coherent plan of work can be developed. We should be open to understand that, in spite of the drawbacks of college online classes, there are several advantages that should be put in consideration so as to think the proper way in which to develop a mixed education, in which teachers can combine traditional learning and online or virtual courses for their students.

Are we capable of doing this? Are we open-minded people to think about the possilibity of college class online? Nowadays, the school is still very conservative, and it appears to have stayed in the past, keeping traditional forms that belong more to the past than to the present. There is a negative fright towards new techonologies and its potentials, possilibities that come together with the intentions of schools of aopening to new forms, of having other spaces for education, and other possibilities for students that, for some reason or other, cannot attend school in the traditional way. The change depends on every educator, on every part of the educational system, even on the headmisters and headmistresses of every educational institute. There is no chance to avoid the fact that we live in the Information Society, In which knowledge is the key to success. Therefore, a new kind of thought is needed.