Online Education versus Traditional Education
With the techno savvy world that we live in today, an education can easily be earned; whether we are at home alone, in the big easy chair, or sitting at a desk in a classroom full of other students. A person with a computer can get and earn a full Masters degree, right from the comforts of home, as opposed to the old traditional style of having to drive to class or go to another city all together, and sit at a very uncomfortable desk, that you doodled on to pass the time away.
Times and things have changed in the 21st century, including our ways of being educated. Classrooms used to be little one roomed buildings, that had one teacher for an entire day and students were educated about everything from Algebra to United States Government. As times changed there were more teachers to teach classes, wrote on blackboards and students were told to raise their hand if they had a question. Today the virtual world that we live in anything can be taught and or learned from cyberspace and the world of technology. In online classes, communication is dependent upon if the satellites are all working properly and if you paid your internet bill on time. You can communicate with your teacher and other students through email, and then you just sit and wait for a reply or an answer to your posts or emails. There are no teachers looking at you as you do your assignments or raising their eyebrows if you talk.
The face to face of traditional education started to decline in the late 1990’s and the Department of Education had to find a way to entice more people to “want” to go to school. In 2001, “more than 1,100 institutions of higher education in the United States offered courses online” (Elvers, Polzella, & Graetz, 2003, p. 159). Today, almost every educational facility offers online, or is in the process of implementing online classes.