Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fox]

Article here.

[sqrlnutz123]

I got my undergrad degree completely online (except for the science classes that required labs, although since then even some of those are offered online via virtual labs).
It was in many ways better than going to class because you could schedule your school around your life instead of the other way around, though the quality of the online classes varies tremendously between institutions and sometimes even between classes at the same institution.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

We have very deep feelings about education, I think, because it is a barometer for many of the successes and ills of our society. Thomas Friedman says that in every nation he's ever been, people think their school system is falling behind.

The problem is that improving education involves so many intangibles and solutions. One major difficulty to me is that we mythologize the teacher in abstract but we don't respect teachers or education in the specific. Teachers are overpaid whiners and their symbols are Miss Kerbappel and Principal Skinner. Education is something we do until we can take up more important jobs as supermodel and hip-hop gangster. Until education itself is valued, students aren't going to work harder because they have a customized program on a screen. We need better teachers, but as Bill Maher suggests, we also need better students and parents.

I don't think it's either-or. We can adapt to an internet world by having more activities and course materials online and by de-emphasizing the necessity for physical class space. But to me, replacing schoolrooms or lecture halls outright with electronic courses is throwing money at a problem rather than dealing intelligently with it. I'm not demeaning people who do online degrees.

But to apply this template to everyone, especially children or low-motivation students, would be foolhardy. What internet delivery does well is personalized and targeted information and course delivery. What it does poorly is building socialization skills, physical-motor skills, and discipline. Interactive text-bites and multimedia are wonderful for quick information. It is terrible for the sort of deep, linear thinking that web pages usually don't provide and books usually do. School systems can mix online and offline education, but to go whole hog online only makes IT people rich and results in fat, shallow thinkers who can't get along in a physical meeting.

[Summer Wine]

I am currently studying online for the second semester. I did my first semester in the classroom. The papers are the same I would be taking in class, the assesments are the same.

I email them as attachments instead of handing them in, but theres no real difference in the lessons. I am using the same books and I bought them like I would have for my sit down class.

I am not sure how the two exams will be handled, but my past lecturer said I would probably do them online. I like it, as it allows me to work at my own level and now takes up all the spare time I used to have twiddling my thumbs between classes and on empty days.

[Senior]

Definitely.

There is a mountain of content online. MIT, Berkeley and Yale have a good quality content. I'm using this guy http://khanacademy.org/ to brush up on stuff that I sucked at in high school eg calc and all of science.

The only trouble is, you still have to pay the big bucks to get the shiny piece of paper at the end.

[Fox]

[Senior]