Online School, On The Far Side The Promotional Material...

A. J. Jacobs (“Two Cheers for internet U!,” Sunday Review, Apr 21) grades his experiences as associate soul in many huge open on-line courses, or MOOCs. In most classes he rates them pretty much as good to excellent.

But a stronger thanks to assess the effectiveness of distance education, MOOCs and different kinds of on-line learning is to raise employers whom they might rather hire: somebody with a degree from a distance supplier or someone with a degree from a bricks-and-mortar school.

The obvious answer to it question suggests that distance education is being overhyped and oversold to the general public.

BRUCE B. SVARE
Albany, April 23, 2013


The writer may be a academic of science and neurobiology at the University at Albany, SUNY.

To the Editor:

I’ve learned abundant from teaching on-line courses since 2001. however 3 lessons appear notably illuminating:

Not all students begin school as autodidacts; not all professors area unit as magnetic as televangelists (myself included); and not all schools area unit tiny bailiwick establishments that offer convenient social and educational engagement opportunities for college students.

Well-designed on-line courses instructed by professors at native universities will cultivate autonomous learning methods and build opportunities for student-to-student engagement yet as student-to-professor engagement. this may offer the coed UN agency is juggling faculty, work and family responsibilities the means that to finish school.

These aren't huge open on-line courses that place confidence in a far off sage on a stage. Rather, {they area unit|they're} school courses instructed by school members UN agency are trained lecturers and consultants in their fields UN agency worth knowing their students.

LISA HALE ROSE
New York, April 22, 2013


The writer is associate prof of human services at the Borough of Manhattan junior college, CUNY.

To the Editor:

As A. J. Jacobs points out, there's excusable excitement regarding accrued learning efficiencies and student access through huge open on-line courses. At an equivalent time, transcendent learning continues to thrive within the school room.

My students tell Pine Tree State that their most profound learning emerges from humanizing moments of social reference to their peers through face-to-face room encounters. whereas on-line learning will definitely be integrated into this expertise, it's not going to interchange the cross-pollination of concepts, beliefs and values that happens each day within the room.

Higher education is being “reimagined” through on-line lecture rooms and “Web universities” of the longer term, however we have a tendency to don’t ought to imagine an area wherever deeply personal and reflective learning already happens in real time. The room learning expertise still earns highest grades for capturing the intimacy and immediacy of the docile moment.

JONATHAN GARLICK
Boston, April 22, 2013


The writer may be a academic and director of the middle for Integrated Tissue Engineering at Tufts University faculty of dentistry.