I found really interesting and exciting the reports that show the great increase of online courses and online programs across all academic levels in the United States. Indeed, according to the most recent Allen and Seaman’s (2010) "Learning on Demand" report (located at http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/learningondemand.pdf) there was a 17% annual growth in online enrollment from 2007 to 2008. In my opinion this increase shows that students are having more confidence in taking online courses and that academic institutions already started understanding the importance of offering fully online programs. However, hopefully the fact that the demand for online learning is increasing might not somehow jeopardize the quality of some programs which just for offering online courses too would not be properly designed and developed.On the other hand, it was little bit discouraging to read the results of the Eduventures (2010) report regarding the trends in instructional tool usage in online education programs because it seems that most online programs are heavily text-based which means that institutions are not really investing time and effort in utilizing some of the new technologies provided by the Internet. Of course, this statement doesn’t necessarily imply that by using more recent technologies online courses will be taught better. Institutions should also provide the professional development opportunities for instructors to learn the best practices to integrate such technologies into their virtual classrooms.
Personally, I think that the trend is that little by little institutions will implement new technologies as part of their online courses such as mobile learning, Web 2.0, immersive environments, etc. The appropriate integration of these technologies will then boost the continued expansion of online learning not only in the United States but in other countries as well. As a matter of fact, there are many countries still reluctant to take advantage of the benefits provided by online education. Education institutions in those countries might already offer a blended program or a few online courses but not a fully online program. It will be interesting to see if other countries follow the same growth in online courses as the United States within the following years.
References
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2010, January). Learning On Demand: Online Education in the United States, 2009.
Trends in Instructional Tool Usage in Online Education Programs, Research Brief, Eduventures, February 2010
I agree your concerns about the quality of the online education. Even though there are several technologies to use with online education, institutions consider text-based courses as online. It is clear that the text based courses takes more time and effort than any other type to succeed and has limitations.
ReplyDeleteOnline education is growing very fast and institutions apply it not just to benefit from it. In addition to benefits such as being time and location free, one reason is just doing something in a rapidly growing environment.