general Your opinion on Cyber Schooling?

[Rivulet 116]

So, recently I've been hearing a lot about cyber schooling and conducted some research on it. I read some info from a few different cyber schools and to me, it seems alright. You get to learn at your own pace in most of them, and can sometimes have personalized time with your teacher if you don't understand something. I personally think it's a pretty good way to learn for the most part. What do you think? Maybe you go to one yourself, and think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I want to hear anything you guys have to sat about it. Especially if you think of it negatively, as what I was reading from was 80% the schools themselves praising what they do on their own sites. Thanks!

Edited September 20, 2016 by Rivulet

[Vulcan 3,254]

I think I'd prefer Cyber schooling over actual schooling, Mostly because my Home set-up is just so comfortable. If I could get my Law degree at home...I would o_o

[Guest90210 3,568]

I did online schooling during high school due to my social anxiety preventing me from attending normal school. And I must say, it was a horrible experience. Unless you have a parent or guardian closely monitoring your progress, you're most likely going to slack off or fall behind because the way its structured (at least in the online school I went to) is awful. Sitting at home with countless distractions makes it easy to lose motivation to do school work, and once you fall behind, the pressure to climb back up is tough to handle. I've heard of lots of stories of people dropping out due to poor grades doing online school, myself included (eventually dropped out, ended up getting my GED last year).

 

The teacher element is missing with cyber schooling. Sure you can talk to them through a microphone (on rare occasions, because most "classes" are just teachers talking about your lesson for the day rather than actual teacher-and-student discussion), but it just isn't the same as actually being there in person for your teacher to assist you.

 

I would only recommend cyber schooling if you're having serious issues in a brick and mortar school. Use it as a last resort.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Rivendare

[N.W. 3,619]

I did online schooling during high school due to my social anxiety preventing me from attending normal school. And I must say, it was a horrible experience. Unless you have a parent or guardian closely monitoring your progress, you're most likely going to slack off or fall behind because the way its structured (at least in the online school I went to) is awful. Sitting at home with countless distractions makes it easy to lose motivation to do school work, and once you fall behind, the pressure to climb back up is tough to handle. I've heard of lots of stories of people dropping out due to poor grades doing online school, myself included (eventually dropped out, ended up getting my GED last year).

 

The teacher element is missing with cyber schooling. Sure you can talk to them through a microphone (on rare occasions, because most "classes" are just teachers talking about your lesson for the day rather than actual teacher-and-student discussion), but it just isn't the same as actually being there in person for your teacher to assist you.

 

I would only recommend cyber schooling if you're having serious issues in a brick and mortar school. Use it as a last resort.

I could not agree more with this. I've only taken one online course, and it was by far the single worst experience I have ever had in a class, the students were lazy, the professor was lazy, I was lazy. Out of a class of 30, only about 5 people did the group assignment, myself being one of those. 

 

In addition, I still had to drive several hours to a testing center to take the midterm and final exams. 

[Kiri 7,288]

There are pluses and minuses to both, in my opinion. I took several online courses in high school, and then one in college, and I enjoyed the comfort of being at home, or at a place of my choosing. That being said, I had a harder time staying motivated to do my work than in a traditional classroom setting. It takes a certain kind of discipline to pace yourself and to be focused with online schooling, and it isn't the best fit for everyone. I personally preferred traditional courses, especially when attendance and in-class participation were mandatory, because it challenged me to stay on top of things. Plus, it was far less awkward trying to do group study sessions and projects when I was with my classmates in-person. 

[El Duderino 879]

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I have had a few classes that were part online. By that I mean that half of the time we met in class, and the other half we had an online session. I can say that I thought the online parts were a complete waste of time.

[Ruudo Burei 42]

Currently doing that for my college classes.

It's pretty okay. Going at my own pace makes things convenient for me. XD

[Guest90210 3,568]

I could not agree more with this. I've only taken one online course, and it was by far the single worst experience I have ever had in a class, the students were lazy, the professor was lazy, I was lazy.

 

Exactly. Online courses are usually not great learning environments. That's what usually happens when there's no real way to take control of a classroom or work with the students since its all online. Put it this way: I remember joining a class (which they didn't seem to take much note of. People skipped "class" all the time with little to no repercussions), and students were in there typing, asking each other what their PSN/Xbox Live gamertags were while the teacher was discussing the lesson. That's how out of sync everything from the classes to the work structure was. It was a mess. Definitely not the type of environment that encourages constructive discussion and learning, in my opinion. 

Edited September 20, 2016 by Rivendare

[Member Berry 1,217]

I think it depends on the student. I was bullied like fuck in high school and missed a lot of school for that reason, I was also exhausted constantly due to being a teenager with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and depressed. Being bullied, exhausted and depressed isn't the best motivation to go to school. 

 

I probably would have done better if it was online. Then again, I wouldn't have made the friends I did make. 

 

I'm in college right now and we have our class powerpoints online so that's good.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Kayleigh

[Lisa 5,553]

It's horrible, atleast, it's horrible if you're not a very determined person or you're not interested in whatever you're learning. For the language I had to learn in school, I did Italian, which was online. It didn't go well. I lazed through each section because I had no teacher or guardian in person monitoring my progress. I was also disinterested Italian, but out of the languages we could've learnt, Italian, Korean, Indonesian and Spanish, Italian seemed the most compelling. As such, since I didn't really want to learn it, I had no determination and thus blew through each section of the course with no desire to achieve my best.

[Bizarre Wizard 4,996]

I think we live in age of high technologies and it would be silly to not use it. So I guess it's really the best way to study anything what you don't need practice with special gear or material. But there's one problem - is to check if student is honest during test pass. Everyone can agree that student has much more possibilities to cheat on it.

 

So the best scheme - you're studying online and if you need graduation certificate you go to the school to write tests and do practical exercises if there are.

[Dreambiscuit 9,691]

I'd say anything that can take people out of schools and classrooms is a good thing. One one hand, being in school may be a way for some students to feel motivated, having no choice but to carry out assignments as given. But if a student isn't motivated enough to do the work on his/her own, it's just the equivalent of cramming info into the cranium without effectively absorbing or understanding it. To truly learn, information has to be taken in when and how the student wants it. This may seem like an excuse to just goof-off and enjoy nothing but downtime until one is in the mood, but any mind that seeks to learn will do so (and trust me, it's natural, everyone wants it whether they realize it or not). The mind will seek to learn when it's ready and not before. 

I am home-schooled, and I never enjoyed learning more than when I got away from traditional formal schooling and started teaching myself. I fell in love with not only the what and where, but the why, which is what opened vistas of learning that I couldn't have ever dreamed of in a typical school. Each person learns in their own way and should be free to pursue it, whatever that way may be.  

Edited September 20, 2016 by Dreambiscuit

[Luminance 2,186]

I did try it for one class in High School and it was okay. Personally, I think it's a good supplemental source of education but to it's nothing like being in the real classroom. Everything is so sterile and robotic, it's like working at a desk job.

[Ruthborn 55]

You do realise that school is not just for tertiary learning right? It also teaches how to interact in physical and social environments.

 

A big reason why internet forums have the negative stereotypical posters (Trolls, Baiters, Hackers, Predators, etc) is because they did not learn proper social rules and interaction. You don't pick this stuff up on the internet.

 

Do your kid a favour, they live in the physical world, let them learn in the physical world.

[Gestum 2,493]

Well, taking one or two classes online isn't anything bad, but taking all of your classes online isn't anything that I would recommend.

[Guest]

I don't think this is a good idea cause talking to people phisically is a lot more effective than talkign to them online when it comes to getting a point/thought or whatever it is across. It's always been that way. It wouldn't be bad, but I don't think it'd be as effective as your general "school". Though school has it's own problems, and a lot of them, I won't talk about them, that'd go off topic.

[Peppermint Larry 203]

I personally feel the need to go to an actual class. I couldn't even imagine doing home schooling. Then again, I'm also the kind of person who prefers taking notes with pen and paper, which is dying out now for some reason.

 

There's no interaction with other kids when cyber schooling. I know some parents who home schooled their kids and then never let them leave the house without the parents being there. I guess, if the kid enjoys it (or if it's of medical necessity), and the parents realize that they are now responsible for teaching their children social skills, then it could be fine.

 

There's also the problem that the main point of school is to be able to get a job. Most jobs are held at physical locations. Imagine a person who did all their schooling and college online, and they suddenly are working somewhere. Never leaving the house would have made it more confusing and stressful, I think.

 

I had two college courses online before. One of them was pretty okay; we had to read a chapter from a book and then take a test every week. But the other class was a huge nightmare- we had multiple things due everyday. After experiencing that, I no longer buy into the "study at your own pace" thing.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Pepper Mint

[cmarston1 5,959]

It generally isn't something that I am particularly interested in.

[KatonRyu 1,033]

It could be a good thing if, for some reason, you're unable to physically go to school. If you can, however, you should probably go to school in person simply because you need to learn to interact with others and school is one of the prime places to do so. An acquaintance of some friends of mine was home/cyber-schooled and has absolutely zero social skills and has as a result become a Tumblr special snowflake attention whore. I think if that person had gone to school IRL it wouldn't have been that bad.