VIRTUAL EDUCATION CONS

Now that we have gone over some of the benefits of virtual education, let’s take a look at some of the less positive aspects.

a. PEOPLE - There is a decided lack of innate socialization that goes with a virtual education environment. Students are not face to face interacting. This can be problematic especially for the younger students that are in the process of learning socialization and building their emotional intelligence. Also, the level of experience can be reduced by not having that live, on the fly interaction with peers. 

b. LOSS OF EXPERIENCE - Hands on learning can suffer in a virtual environment. While not always the case, (I had a professor require a certain amount of hands on volunteer hours in the community for this very reason), often times the knowledge gains is from reading or watching a video rather than having your hands in the materials. This is fine for some subjects, but one must be careful not to miss out on the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge where and when available. 

c. MOTIVATION - There is no teacher in front of you, no one walking the rows to ensure you do not cheat on a test, unless it is proctored, and no one to pull your attention back in if you zone out of the learning focus. In order to be a successful virtual student, you must have a degree of self-motivation and a desire to learn the materials presented. You also must have an ability to locate needed information, whether it is to GOOGLE it, to know who to ask and who/what are your available resources are and how to tap into them.

e. RESOURCES - While virtual education costs are minimal in some areas, there can be an initial start-up cost that can be prohibitive. The cost of a computer or laptop where materials can be accessed and utilized and the cost of having internet available at a high enough speed to make the materials work in a usable fashion can add up quickly. While there are certainly alternatives, such as the use of a public library or a free wifi connection, there are not always available nor are they always easy to get to. Internet connections can go down, computers can crash. There are many variables that must be taken into consideration when planning to undergo a virtual course or especially to take on a full-fledged virtual based education program. 

Virtual education is not for everyone. It is, however, a fabulous alternative for many. If you would like to know if you are a good candidate for the virtual education environment, check out the following links to see where you fall. 

http://www2.spokaneschools.org/OnlineLearning/self_assessment_quiz.stm

http://www.kvcc.me.edu/Pages/Off-Campus-Programs/Is-Distance-Education-Right-For-Me-Quiz

PROS and CONS of VIRTUAL EDUCATION

Virtual education plays a vital role in the lives of many students, for a large variety of reasons. From the young elementary student who is plagued with an immunodeficiency or possibly even has such a difficult time sitting in classroom for extended periods, to a family who moves often for a parent's career, to the adult student who works full time and takes care of a family and is taking classes that are fit into busy schedules or the person who wants to learn a new skill or trade but for whatever reason would prefer to do so from a non-traditional environment.

There are pros and cons to the virtual school environment. I will go over some of the pros in this post and the cons in the next. With the cons, I will provide a link to an assessment that will let you know if you or a loved one is a good candidate for a virtual education environment.

First, let’s look over some of the pros.

a. TIME - You have the ability in many, if not most, virtual environments to set your own hours for studying and performing the tasks required of you. So, if you are a better thinker in the evenings, you can work then, and vice versa, if you are a morning person, by all means get up early before the kids have popped out of bed and knock out some papers. 

b. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION - With a virtual environment, you have the flexibility to work in almost any physical location that works for you. Need to work from a bed? That is fine, need to work from the beach, as long as you are connected when you need to be, you have that option. You can travel for work or pleasure, you can log on in your spare time and with limited resources.

c. MONEY - Well, who's money? Tax payer’s money is saved by not having to transport the virtual school children to and from. A reduction in teachers could be feasible, depending on the area enrollment. Less money has to be spent on school clothes and the supplies are largely electronic and have an overall lower price than the paper they replace.  

d. DISTRACTION - Some students need to ability to move around or to not be distracted by the goings on in a traditional classroom. A virtual environment gives the student the opportunity to create the oasis that is needed for optimal learning. 

As you can see, there are certainly some positive aspects of having virtual education as a viable option. In my next post, we will discuss the flip side of the virtual education coin. 

K-12 Virtual Education

The focus of this blog will be on primary school virtual education. 

In recent years, virtual schools have popped up in just about every state. This has become a viable option for parents that are discouraged and disenchanted with traditional school systems, have religious beliefs that preclude their children from attending a school that is not based upon the teachings of their faith or fitting with moral beliefs, travel excessively or are ill, and for those children that simply do not function well in the social settings of a traditional system. 

Some school systems, such as Florida, require high school students to take at least one virtual class as a part of the curriculum over the course of their enrollment. Others offer the virtual school as a supplement to the classes offered in the bricks and mortar schools, and for summer school offerings.  

While there are many virtual school options for K-12 studies, Florida Virtual School is the public school alternative and supplement for Florida. it is free of charge for Florida residents, just as any other public school. Live, certified instructors are utilized by the school and are available by e-mail, telephone, and instant messaging. There is a minimum of monthly contact between teachers and their students and parents.

Florida Virtual School is an accredited school where full time students can obtain a full diploma upon graduation. 

While Florida Virtual School, along with many others are computer based virtual environments, there are many homeschooling options that utilize correspondence materials that are paper and multimedia based rather than by use of computer technology from teacher to student. These other method, while older, are still in the virtual school environment, in the since that they are not a face to face teacher to student. 

Courses are set up much like the college level blackboard course, multimedia, readings, discussion boards all are a part of the virtual classroom. Assignments are posted, reviewed, completed and submitted electronically. 

Virtual classrooms meet the needs of many students and take some of the burden off of the classrooms that would otherwise be overpopulated. This said, the virtual school system is not ideal for every student. This can be especially true at the lower grade levels, where motivation and tenacity may not yet be fully developed and social acceptability skills are in the infancy of being built and honed. I will take a deeper look at some of the pros and cons of virtual schooling in my next blog post. 

Virtual Learning, while still considered a new technology, has been around for quite some time. There were TV streams where a professor would teach a class and have it either live broadcasted or recorded then sent through a dedicated television channel, cassette tapes for some correspondence learning materials and more recently, computer based courses that range from elementary school through college level as well as personal and professional growth courses, soon to come will be virtual reality courses. 

I plan to explore the benefits and drawbacks to virtual learning at different life stages as well as digging deeper into some of the various methods used today.

This is my new blog for my Com class Summer 2014.
I will be blogging about virtual education.