Posted September 23, 2009; The Chronicler’s Web
Source: Woodrow Aames, MSN Encarta
CLARKSBURG, WV — You know the game: One person whispers a secret to someone else, they whisper to the next person, and by the time you hear the remark out loud, there’s no resemblance to the original remark. The same goes for lingering myths about the quality and validity of the education you receive from online degree programs. While shortcomings may have existed in the earliest years of Internet instruction, today’s online college and trade school education programs are accredited and their degrees and certifications are accepted by employers.
Back in the early 1960s, the first computer-based education system was created at the University of Illinois. The PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) online learning system could only reach 1,000 computers around the world. Today, more than 227 million Americans are connected to the Internet, an increase of 118 percent since this decade. Whether you live in the heart of New York City or on a hilltop in remote Wyoming, you have access to accredited, online college degree programs throughout the globe.
Students working online at the time of their choosing can enroll, pay fees, log-on in the virtual classroom, attend lectures, watch streaming presentations, participate in class discussions, and email peers and instructors. And they have access to libraries and Web-based resources 24 hours a day, every day. There are colleges and universities completely devoted to an online education, while nearly every major university in the land offers coursework online or combines online assignments with on-campus learning in a hybrid curriculum. The Sloan Consortium reports that more than 20 percent of all post-secondary students — more than 3.9 million students — were taking at least one online course in 2007.
Let’s examine the top-five myths about online adult education and college degree programs: (more…)
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