¶ … Students Lose More than They Gain in Online Writing Classes?
Kate Kiefer
Kate Kiefer gives a proposition that undertaking the writing classes online is an exercise in futility that has faults and cannot give the same good and appreciable results as the traditional face-to-face interaction between the teacher and the student. She gives account of various instances that she encountered as a teacher who has tried both the traditional class model and the currently introduced online classes and inclines more towards the tradition class setting.
With advent of information technology, there are emerging trends that are irreversible within the almost all sectors, and the education sector is not an exemption. The information technology era has seen the doubling of speed of doing almost everything and for any sector that rejects coping with the trend, will be left far much behind. The use of online writing classes among other online-based lessons has positive impacts on the education sector and makes it more convenient for students who increasingly embrace it as a reliable and dependable mode of study hence cannot be wished away, in total contravention of the propositions of Kate Kiefer's arguments.
Kata comes out as staunch supporter of the traditional class model and its continuity, this is a claim she supports with various anecdotes and explanations among the most outstanding being that the language and communication of the same is a situated discipline hence when it gets online, then it loses the "situatedness" as a language. Communication and language have the context that the culture and the socio-cognition of these communication instances and lessons can only be experienced when people are on a one on one interaction. Indeed, this centrality of the context stands out even more in the contemporary language use as Kate points out. Kate also points out that the online writing classes have experiences lesser cooperation among the students as compared to the traditional classes where the teacher student interaction thrives. Kate further criticizes the software used in the online classes, the WebCT and Blackboard, to be alienating the writing teachers and instead supports...
These software also leave the students not knowing how many other students are in the same online class as Kate indicates. There is yet another argument that is fronted on the exclusion of some students from the online writing classes since not all students will be able to log in at the same time and those who log in late will find it hard to negotiate through the bulletin board with numerous postings. Downloading content as well as uploading to the board or to the lecturer is also seen to pose a challenge as often the size of files involved are too big and will be rejected or will consume time to download. The online students are also depicted as too busy to get the time to attend all classes since they study in the midst of other commitments hence even their assignments are inconveniently squeezed in over the weekends due to time constrain. The online mode of writing lesson is also portrayed as one that is market oriented and makes those who enroll in these classes to focus only on the feedback from the teacher and not on the interactive nature of a class that would allow them to know more about each other and also make themselves be known to other students. Anything unrelated to the class and the end result is ignored as Kate puts it. In such classes, the author indicates that it is impossible to model good behavior and makes learning seem like an end in itself. Kate summarizes by emphasizing that students in the online model of education lose a lot and go astray yet the teachers have no chance to correct these mistakes that may not necessarily be directly connected to their grade at the end of it, but helps mold a better writing student in the future.
However, amidst the numerous reasons that Kate outlines to discredit the online module of attending writing classes, it is abundantly clear that the progress of the online mode of communication is here t stay and education systems in various institutions have largely embrace it. There are several reasons for the even increasing acceptance of this technology. The author indicates that there is diminished or constrained communication among the students, contrary to this, the online classes open up equal opportunities…
