I have gotten more out of my online learning experience than I did out of my four years as an undergraduate in a regular face-to-face setting. Part of this is due to increased maturity and a more goal-oriented mentality, and part is due to the fact that I have been able to make my online education experience work with the other facets of my life including work and family. The Bits Blog we read talks about online learning being tailored to individual learners and I think the fact that online learning can be fit in around other obligations is an example of this. Since there is no information studies program at a school within driving distance, or even in my state for that matter, getting my masters degree would have meant relocating to another state. As much as I want the degree, relocating would have been out of the question at this point in my life, so I am very glad to live in an age in which I am able to further my education through distance learning.
I think that students who do well in online learning environments probably have a few characteristics in common: That they have a high level of motivation to learn, they are good at being self-starters and self-regulators and they do well without close supervision and monitoring. I think maturity brings about many of these characteristics. I think many young people who would not have the self-regulation skills to schedule their time properly for online learning would do so very well at a later time in life when they are more mature and have more motivation to learn for a specific reason. And, although this maturity comes to many of us, like me, with age, I also think there are plenty of people who have this type of maturity and self-regulation at a young age.
Chapter 9 of our text talks about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation and mastery vs. performance goals. I think that online learners are those whose motivation is primarily intrinsic, and whose goals are primarily mastery goals. Most of us want to learn for the sake of learning and earn the degree in order to meet the qualifications required to master our subject. I think there is some blurring of these motivations and goals, and that each individual online learner may have more or less of either type. For example, earning a degree or acquiring a certain job might be considered extrinsic motivations or performance goals in a sense, but I believe that most online learners are seeking the tangible degree in order to obtain a job in a field in which they can apply learning which they are intrinsically passionate about.
The Bits Blog article states that all the good news regarding studies of the successes of online learning does not mean that we will be saying goodbye to the classroom, and I agree completely with this. I think there will always be a need for both types of learning. We've always had the standard face-to-face learning which works well for so many people, and now we have the online learning, which gives another segment of the population a realistic way to further their education.
Luckily for those of us obtaining online degrees, employers are receptive to prospective employees who have obtained degrees online from accredited, reputable programs. According to an article on CNN.com by Rachel Zupek, to many employers, a degree is a degree. And while other employers have more specific standards about where the degree comes from, for most the fact that a degree was earned online or face-to-face is less important than the institution's reputations as a whole and factors such as accreditation and the quality of graduates. So, it seems to me that the news is all good - not only does online learning work well for many of us, but employers will be happy to have us!
References
Lohr, S. (2009, Aug. 19). Study finds that online education beats the classroom. Retrieved from
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds -that-online-education-beats-the-
classroom/?ref=education
Moreno, R. (2010). Educational psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Zupek, R. (2010). Employers on online education. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/
LIVING/worklife/03/29/cb.employers.online.education/index.html?iref=allsearch
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