Online Education Versus Traditional Education

With high speed internet available to potential students of all economic levels, schools are opting to implement online classes into their traditional teaching curriculum. As a result, our society is divided in two different ways of thinking on the education. Some believe the modern method is better than the traditional method of teaching. Personally, I believe both methods should balance one another instead of attempting to substitute one another; this way their purpose of educating will be far more successful.

Online education, also called long distant learning, can be defined as a new method of learning through a computer network. This modern way of teaching gives students an opportunity to take classes online. Bill Gates recently predicted that in five years most colleges will be providing online education. “The self-motivated learner will be on the Web,” Mr. Gates said, speaking at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe. “College needs to be less place-based.”(Steve) Online courses allow students to access course content, including reading lists and library materials, at any time. This flexibility of online courses is primarily important for students who have young children, who are caring for ailing or elderly family members, who have full-time jobs, or who live too far from campus. Flexible hours are also beneficial because it allow students to work at their own speed; taking courses either part time or on an accelerated schedule. According to the article in the New York Times, titled “Study Finds That Online Education Beats Classroom,” the SRI International for the Department of Education, conducted a research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Most of the studies were conducted in co...

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...ies to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized.” However, it is important to accentuate that learning highly depends on the students’ motivation to learn. So it still comes down to the effort that the students put into their education that ultimately decides how beneficial the overall experience was to their future career.

Works Cited

Willis, J. (2008). Brain-based teaching strategies for improving students' memory, learning, and test-taking success (Review of Research). Childhood Education, 83(5), 31-316.

Lohr, Steve. "Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom"." New York Times (2014). Web. 16 Mar 2015.

Lohr, Steve. "Second Thoughts on Online Education." New York Times (2013). Web. 06 Mar 2015.