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Today I have Angelita Williams guest blogging. Please be sure to check out her unique guest post. Guest posts are always welcome, please contact me.
Certain educators and students resist the idea of eLearning and distance education because it often goes against their traditional notions of what makes up a proper learning community: a physical classroom in which students and their instructors work together to solve problems and reflect upon their learning methods.Through collaboration, all members of the learning community gain an education. According to opponents of eLearning, this particularly humanist learning method cannot apply to computer-assisted learning, because technology, in their opinion, stands in the way of face-to-face communication. And of course, some will allow that technology can be used with this traditional pedagogy, but only as a supplemental tool.
Fortunately, just as early twentieth century pedagogical practices, what Paulo Freire called "the banking concept of education," shifted according to the needs of nontraditional students, so too will twenty-first century pedagogical practices, especially now that technology has significantly improved within educational sectors. Consider this: according to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 1999-2000 school year 27 percent of all American undergraduates were traditional and 28 percent were "highly nontraditional." Furthermore, these percentages represent an increase in nontraditional enrollment numbers from 1992-1993. I don't know the European numbers, but I do see a trend at work within the United States educational system.
As their numbers increase, more nontraditional students will demand access to learning communities. As someone who has taught freshmen composition at several large American universities, I can offer anecdotal evidence that the few nontraditional students enrolled in my classes often voiced to me their concern about their ability to 'fit in.' While I did my best to help them adjust, I believe that an online community could have offered them an even better resource.
An online learning community offers nontraditional students benefits similar to those the brick and mortar campus gives traditional students. Both allow the student to manage his or her schedule: a nontraditional student can use the internet to work around a full-time job, while the traditional student can schedule classes around his or her interests. Both communities give the student important resources: a nontraditional student can access many electronic databases, while the traditional student can go to the library or attend a lab session. And both communities give the student people with which to interact: the nontraditional student joins forums, video chats, and so on, while the traditional student sits in seminars and study groups.
Of course, the differences exist in how the nontraditional student accesses that community. I suppose I could understand concerns that opponents raise about eLearning if technology continued to lag behind demand; however, technology has improved so much that eLearning cannot afford to ignore it. Technology, essentially, has helped us develop a solid eLearning pedagogy so as to better serve nontraditional students.
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This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online college courses.
Many thanks to Angelita Williams.
Enjoy your reading!
