Learning of the Virtual Persuasion

So here we are, week six of this bloggerific blog. I had actually planned on using it more, perhaps actually fleshing it out and making it my main blog even after the class has finished, but I think perhaps I shall start anew. Of course who knows. Maybe I'll just make new posts on this one later and pretend nothing ever changed. Could happen.

Anyway, the topic of discussion this week centered around the so-called "virtual classroom" and whether I thought it was a good/bad/mediocre idea. To sum it up, yes. I think It has great merits, in that the students can have more individualized learning plans that could potentially increase their... potential. On the other hand, something that I brought up in the discussion, it reminds me of the debate of home school vs. public school in that a main concern from my corner is socialization. Students really need to be around other students, whether for learning purposes like the classroom or simply for social interactions. While the virtual classroom is not going to turn kids into boring computer-wilding robots, unless they are actively involved in other activities, they may miss out on a crucial part of development, and there is no telling what the consequences of that would be. But like all things, if done properly (which in my opinion involves some sort of extra-curricular such as a sport or science team, etc.) then the benefit to this sort of program could be vast. But like I said, it has to be done right. There is also a concern about the amount of drive the student has. If it were me in a virtual classroom, I wouldn't have lasted. I can take the occasional online assignment and such, but if my entire curriculum was online and I had the ability to do it at my leisure, you can bet that I'd be procrastinating until I had 22 hours left to do 23 hours of work. But then again, I wasn't always a driven student. It's something that has to be developed.

I am afraid, however, that this will hurt us in more than  one way. For one thing, it could be a threat to brick and mortar schools, which allow education for those who may not have access to the internet at home. Since the virtual classroom is less expensive (apparently about 1/3 the price per student), I'm afraid that more and more funding will be pulled from brick and mortar schools and this will end up leaving a lot of students behind. Additionally, since several more students are able to take classes online in a single "classroom" than in a brick and mortar school, this could theoretically mean a lower demand for teachers as one teacher can cover a lot more students in a virtual classroom. These are just some of the things I see. I'll be a fence-sitter for now, but I'm not sure when I'll fall to either side.