Virtually Outgoing

            Virtual classrooms allow the usually shy people to become outgoing. For example, many people in face-to-face classes are to shy or uncomfortable speaking out during class. They may have an opinion on what is being discussed, but have a fear of speaking in public, or being the center of attention in a large group.  But online classes allow these shy people to discuss their views without fear. In a New York Times article Learning in Classrooms Versus Online, Jane Rosecrans said, “The vast majority of my students contribute to discussions online, not just the few brave enough to speak up in a traditional class. The lack of spatial proximity gives more students the “courage” to engage me directly.” This ability for students to be able to express their thoughts without fear is one of the reasons the virtual classroom has diffused onto so many people’s computers.

So Many Options

One of the reasons why the virtual classroom has diffused at the rate it has is due to the amount of options people are given on where to go to school, and what classes to take. At FSU alone there are more than a hundred online classes and in Florida there are many virtual schools to choose from.

Top Florida Virtual schools:

·      Strayer University Florida Campus

·      DeVry University in Florida

·     University of Phoenix in Florida

Furthermore online classes are not only limited to the college and university level. Students at the K-12 level are able to take online courses as well. For example, Florida offers online public school courses for free. Other states offer this as well, most virtual schools, are charter schools and receive money from the state which gives them the flexibility to allow students to attend for free.

Three of the top K-12 Virtual schools are:

·      Florida Connections Academy

·      Florida Virtual School

·     Florida Virtual Academy

Due to the amount of experience that today’s society has with the Internet and due to the amount of options students have with choosing what school and class to take online, the virtual classroom has spread far and wide.

Virtually Lazy

            A negative reason that virtual courses have diffused so profusely is that they cater to the lazy and socially inept. Face to face classroom styles while more time consuming, and more costly, are better at inspiring academic excellence. It takes motivation to wake up at 8:00 in the morning and hike a mile to class to learn, but all of that effort adds to a student’s willingness to learn. Going to class promotes responsibility in a way that a virtual classroom doesn’t. For example, in The New York Times article Learning in Classrooms Versus Online, a student wrote, “I started the program with enthusiasm, but I soon felt alone and unsupported. I had no one to impress or disappoint. I struggled to stay motivated. It was impersonal and transactional.” The Internet while full of social media sites is still a very lonely place; it’s just you and your screen. There isn’t any real social interaction or effort to be somewhere at a certain time, and that is one of the reasons, one of the bad reasons, the virtual classroom has become so popular.

            As social media sites become increasingly more popular, being truly social and going outside becomes less popular. The virtual classroom is only aiding this social ineptitude, and catering to people being lazy and not going outside. A classroom is not only a place to get an education but it’s also a place for people to interact with one another and to challenge ideas. For example, in The New York Times article The Trouble With Online Education, the columnist wrote, “A truly memorable college class, even a large one, is collaboration between teacher and students. It’s a one-time-only event. Learning at its best is a collective enterprise.” It is possible to create social interactions in a virtual class but it is difficult, and not the same as a face-to-face conversation. Sadly, this lack of human interaction and motivation to learn is one of the reasons why the virtual classroom has diffused at such a fast place, and over such a great distance.

The Online Classrooms Willingness To Change

            Virtual education is still in its early stages of development, constantly growing and changing as it reaches new people. For example, like all technologies there are going to be kinks that need to be fixed when they first start out, nothing is going to be perfect right off the bat. When virtual schools were first being created and introduced into society, important questions had to be tackled like, what the price should be, who should the targeted audience be, how should it be marketed. Just like with any other technology some parts of them succeed while other part of them failed. While the innovation stage of the online classroom maybe over, teachers still search for ways to make the virtual classroom similar to the lecture hall. For example, in The New York Times article The Trouble With Online Education, a virtual teacher stated, “With every class we teach, we need to learn who the people in front of us are. We need to know where they are intellectually, who they are as people and what we can do to help them grow.” One of the problems facing online classes is that they are too broad, having a sort of “one-size fits all” mentality, with the professor talking to the students through the Internet without any real response. Sometimes in an online class its as though the professor is engaging a monologue, while one of the best ways to learn is through dialogue. Furthermore, The New York Times article stated, “The Internet teacher, even one who responds to students via e-mail, can never have the immediacy of contact that the teacher on the scene can, with his sensitivity to unspoken moods and enthusiasms. This is particularly true of online courses for which the lectures are already filmed and in the can.” It’s hard for a teacher to gauge a student’s mood, or too see how they are picking up the information through an online class. While a regular classroom teacher could easily pick up on the mood of their students by looking at facial expressions. But this is being fixed through discussion board posts and group projects that force students to engage in a dialogue through posting and emails. Also, virtual classroom are making more of an effort to use the Internet as a means to learn, forcing students to use different tools on the internet like Blogs, Podcasts, and even Youtube, to help them learn and provide the teachers with an idea on how the students are absorbing the information that they are being given. Based on the diffusion of innovation theory, one of the reasons the virtual classroom is still going strong is because it has learned to adapt by accepting criticism and changing based on popular views.

Advantages in Cost and Time

-->

-->

            Virtual education is an evolution of conventional education, resulting from a need and a means. While there are many disadvantages to a virtual education, one of the major positive advantages is cost. While there is no real substitute for the social atmosphere of a classroom, people of middle and poorer societies are going to continue to seek out these more cost efficient Internet course. For example, the diffusion of innovation theory states that, “how quickly an innovation diffuses depends on several factors, a major one being cost”(MediaNow). College is expensive, and not everyone can afford it, most people can’t afford it, but most people want an education, want a degree that will provide them with a better job. One of the reasons why Virtual education has spread so rapidly is because its affordable and allows the minority to access something they weren’t able to before. “The University of Florida’s (UF) distance learning program has its own financial aid offerings for online students, including hundreds of academic and endowed scholarships, all held in an online database.” Other programs like Facts.org, and Florida Bright Futures, also provide students who attend both on campus and online universities with scholarships and financial aid. Furthermore, African Americans and Hispanics are less likely to go to college than Anglos. But virtual school came about changing this notion that not everyone can get an education by, “offering free tuition and hundreds of classes ranging from basic required subjects to electives like world languages and art." Now not only can people get a degree, but there are now fun and exciting options in classes for them to take like history, art, and communication. Furthermore, the diffusion of innovations theory would use time as another factor for the collective acceptance of the virtual classroom. For example, not everyone has the time to go to college, while they are juggling a job and a family. Usually an education is something that is more like a dream than a reality. But with a virtual education time isn’t really an issue. Anyone with a computer or a library card with access to the Internet can take an online class and earn a degree and do it on their own time. The diffusion of innovations theory shows us that with a virtual education time and cost are one of the main reasons it has succeeded so well.