Job Discussion Forums

coder · Joined: 12 Jun 2014 Posts: 94 Location: USA

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The Fifth Column · Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:00 am Post subject:

coder: The only "professionals" who would have issue with this point would be those who cut corners and "achieved" their degrees online.

I, myself, resigned from kick-ass employment in Saudi Arabia (back in 2000 when it made sense to work there) to drop out and take time to WORK on a degree, returning a few years later.

The investment has paid off handsomely without me having to crow out of faux pride of my academic accomplishments...which includes the idiots that I currently work with who took "band-aid" courses to keep their jobs...

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

We're talking about CERTs here, not advanced degrees. To an employer, the whole reason for a cert is to know that they have had some actual training for classroom teaching... supervised... teaching actual students.

Morocco tend to draw many "backpacker" type teachers who think that their being a native speaker is enough to let them pay for their stay by teaching.

VS

omanoman · Joined: 11 Jun 2014 Posts: 140

Of course, a teaching certification must have some form of a practicum to it, face to face teaching in real life.

But online courses and degrees can be just as legitimate as traditional classes. There are reputable and robust programs as well as crap paint- by- numbers options too., frankly, just as courses from colleges and universities.

Pretty harsh generalization from 5th Column though, vastly unfair. Most people can't quit entirely and study for a year or two. The brick and mortar colleges are accredited and so are the online programs, so what's the big difference? other than beer and wings at the campus pub? Wink

The Fifth Column · Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:49 am Post subject:

omanoman · Joined: 11 Jun 2014 Posts: 140

Fair enough. There is no substitute for actual human interaction - something which seems increasingly under pressure from all the online communication and social media connections that are available and popular now.

Still, the online back and forth in class forums, group chat settings or mails can solicit better work, with people having more time to compose and edit their contributions. I did a post grad certification course in an unrelated field and found it to be very useful - no late comers to the group, missed meetings, bad coffee or rambling discourse.

It's a big part of the future of education - for better and worse.