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.