Pros of Online Education

With today’s struggling economy, and universities getting more and more expensive, more students have turned to taking courses online. According to the American Journal of Nursing, “online education is a way to meet a growing need for affordable bachelor of sciences in nursing degrees” (McCrobie, 2007, p.13). This doesn’t just apply to nursing majors though; online education can be more affordable for any majors. Online education can also help universities out by increasing “program capacity because it’s not limited by geography and to save money because they don’t have to pay for classrooms and can recruit qualified field instructors to work with university professors” (McCrobie, 2007, p.13). However, even though it might be cheaper for both students and universities, some worry that online courses might affect research and scholarly enterprise at universities or will cause a decline in the amount of quality of study (Sive, 2013, p.277). Sive believes this will not happen though. He states that online courses will “aid interdisciplinary work by enabling greater access to conceptual or technical tuition” (Sive, 2013, p.277). The technological determinism theory shows here how online education has increased student’s capacity for learning. It is opening up more doors by making it more affordable for students and by offering more resources for research and information. Sive also found that “the time in a faculty member’s schedule that is freed up through the use of online material is invested back into ‘flipped’ classrooms- students have already studied lecture material online, meaning that class time is used for discussion, hands-on activities, problem solving and research” (Sive, 2013, p.278). This is creating many opportunities for universities to teach more material and for students to learn more information. In my experience, many of my classes utilize online tools as well as teaching in class. They will give us extra notes, assignments, or lectures online for us to look at to further our knowledge on the material. This allows more time for classroom discussion and students being able to asks questions on material they do not understand. The one concern here is that students need to have the will power to use the resources online to help them in the class. If they do not take advantage of these resources it could cause them to really struggle in class because most teachers test based on material given both in class and online. Overall though, online education is paving the way to create smarter and more knowledgeable students.

McCrobie, B. (2007). Online Education. The American Journal of Nursing, 107(12), 13-13. Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/stable/40384550?pq-origsite=summon&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Sive, H., & Sarma, S. (2013). Education: Online on-ramps. Nature, 499(7458), 277-278. doi:10.1038/499277a