Online Ed Online vs. Traditional Classrooms the

Online Ed Online vs. Traditional Classrooms The Internet has provided enormous opportunities in many different areas of society, from pure information seeking to commerce to government access and a variety of other services.

Even the world of education -- and especially higher education -- has been transformed by the advent of the Internet in numerous ways that support traditional classroom learning (the availability of online notes and podcast lectures, email communication, etc.) and in classrooms and learning experiences that are entirely online-based and do not require any physical classroom or direct student interaction at all. While there are many benefits to online education from both the school's and the student's perspective, there are also certain potential problems.

The following pages compare online and traditional classrooms in the areas of cost, ease, and the quality of the education, comparing and contrasting the benefits and problems of the two learning methods in each area. Cost There are several ways in which online classrooms reduce costs for schools and for students. The lower level of physical resources -- classrooms, energy costs for the building, classroom equipment, etc. -- needed leads to direct cost savings, making it cheaper for schools to offer online courses than physical courses, generally speaking (Carron, 2006; Lohr, 2009).

This in turn means students can be charged less for their courses, and thus affordability has become a major factor in many students' decisions to use online education (Carron, 2006).

It is not simply that there is a lower level of total or absolute resource cost to schools is lower for online classes than for traditional classes that require classrooms and all the expenses of full facilities, but also that the number of students that can be enrolled in an online course is typically much greater than the number of students that can reasonably enroll in a traditional classroom course.

A podcast lecture can reach hundreds or even thousands of students at a time, dwarfing even large lecture halls at traditional universities. This economy of scale is also important when noting the cost differences to schools of offering traditional vs. online classes; if the school can enroll significantly more students for an online course without increasing the expense of offering the course, then the per-student cost decreases and the per-student revenue increases (Lohr, 2009).

Again, this can lead to savings for students in the form of reduced tuition costs, as well (Carron, 2006). Ease Though cost savings definitely exist and can be a contributing factor in both schools' and students' decisions to offer/enroll in online classes rather than traditional classes, the ease of taking these courses -- not the level of academic rigor, but the convenience and flexibility -- is perhaps the primary reason most students choose to use online classes rather than traditional classes (Carron, 2006; Lohr, 2009).

Traditional classes, clearly, have to meet at specific times and require travel to the physical location where the class is being held. Online classes can often be completed whenever and wherever the student is available (Carron, 2006).

The convenience factor of online classrooms is immense; though there are specific time periods within which certain elements of coursework must be completed and when certain readings, etc., are supposed to be finished, an online student -- many of whom have jobs and other responsibilities in addition to school -- could perform the necessary work late at night, or during a lunch break, or even in a few different short periods throughout the day or week (Carron, 2006; Lohr, 2009).

Traditional classrooms require students to be at a specific location at a specific time, and this can make the classes more difficult if not downright impossible for many students, especially older or other "non-traditional" students (Carron, 2006). This is related to the cost of the courses, too, as the ability for more students to take online courses is increased by this ease and convenience, affecting economies of scale still further and potentially creating greater revenue and reduced tuition for students.

Quality So far, the comparison of online and traditional courses has seemed to strongly favor online courses, as they are (or can be) offered at lower costs/cheaper rates and with greater levels of convenience for students. There are some serious potential problems with the quality of education received through online courses and the ability for students to achieve meaningful success, however, and these warrant careful consideration (Carron, 2006).

Many of the benefits of online classrooms negate the possibilities of the benefits of traditional classrooms, which have direct impacts on the quality of education and level of achievement possible. The requirement of traditional classrooms that students actually come to class at a certain time and in a certain location provides the structure and incentive that many students, especially those that seek higher education immediately after high school, need in order to achieve (Carron, 2006).

Even discounting the issues of responsibility and self-motivation that arise with online learning, which are very significant issues, there are other major benefits to actually.