Online Education Essay

Every parent’s dream is to influence their children with life skills that will guide them to success in the future. In most cases, parents usually work full time jobs to achieve extra income to save for their children college costs. A college education could very well be that â€Å"cherry on top of the ice cream† for parents, and give them a moment to relax and finally take a breather. Today we find young adults with jobs working as hard their parents once did. This made it difficult to balance both work and school for them. In some instances, parents are usually the child’s first role model and teach them to set the standard for a good foundation of direction and determination. Students have been finding different methods to make it work by balancing out their work and school schedules. For example, working various schedules has been difficult, to include, morning, midday or twilight shifts just to add school, in their schedule. The burden in juggling work, school and personal time resulted in school taking a back seat and leaving no room to attend a traditional classroom. Distance learning has opened the door to the education community, businesses and private companies in many ways to assist those by introducing classroom instruction via online. Online education has boomed the past few years and has given individuals the chance to further their education. Priorities have once again changed, and the percentage of online courses taken has risen. Nonetheless, there is still argument whether a learner can obtain the information online, vice receiving proper classroom education. The goal of this paper is to address the benefits of distance learning are to identify the values, soundness and impact of online education. The future of online education has already impacted us in some way. Can one recall ever reading anything off your computer, smart phone or tablet? That is right! Believe it or not one has been educating themselves via the internet already. The tools are there and why not take advantage of a higher education with a college and/or university. In the article, Tom Snyder stated that, â€Å"lifelong learning must now be a part of everyone’s career plan†. I could not agree more with that statement. Web-based programs are on a rise and to educate oneself in an online environment is a significant benefit. There is always online training that your job requires one to complete for career advancement, without having a web based education one will not be able to get the required training needed for promotion. Online education is similar to what web-based training has to offer. It has the same goal in pushing out the information to such student, and it primarily depends on what the student is willing to learn. For students to have success while taking an online course, they should be determine and motivated. Even though online education is a self paced class, one can get overwhelmed and fall behind quickly. Instructors are answering questions online when students may have a problem. They will have to become more involved with the students by interacting on a one on one basis vice the classroom setting. The traditional classroom will always be there, and some may prefer it, but online learning has many benefits that cannot get passed up. In the Marine Corps, its main focal point is to be tactfully and technically proficient in their everyday duties. In the article, Samuel Ellis captures the big picture and identifies importance of being vigilant around your surroundings and what to do during an incident involving an active shooter. A key point that Brad Plumer wrote in February was that, â€Å"there have been 43 mass shootings in 25 states over the past four years – or nearly one per month†. The Marine Corps took notice, and it was not too long that something had to get done. Marine net is a distance learning tool that allows Marines, civilian employees and contractors the ability to gain and attain information via online education. According to Pete Russett, director of Mission Assurance Branch, â€Å"The shooting at Fort Hood and other similar tragedies led to this training†. Although this requisite requires your full attention to improve your experience on procedures for active shooters, it also assures that we can be familiar with the procedures of an active shooter. To train the number of Marines and civilians in a short amount of time would have taken long in a face to face classroom. However, Marine net bridged that gap and has established the ability to push out information and instruct everyone in a timely manner. Some may refer to online education as â€Å"false education† by not receiving the proper education in a tradition classroom. The article, Online Education May Transform Higher Ed, Brian Burnsed wanted to let the reader know that online education is happening throughout all colleges and universities and not leaving anytime soon. There were interesting facts that shook the online education movement. For example, change is constant and never-ending with innovations making it easier for students to access the internet for online courses. According to Matthew Tabor’s article, Louis Soares said, â€Å"A disruptive innovation always starts out at a lower quality,† he says. â€Å"[But], if you take that for-profit energy out of higher education, online [education] would not have grown the way it has in the last 10 years. † There has been an increase of student enrollment for online programs at these institutes. In the past, one was able to receive an associates and/or bachelors degree at smaller institutions that were strictly online courses. The bigger named universities and colleges have taken notice and started to implement newer online programs for potential students. This strategy ensured that students were, in fact, choosing these recognized institutes for online education. In Brian Burnsheds’ article, Richard Garrett, managing director at research firm, said, â€Å"We’re at the beginning of elite schools starting to take online seriously†. The increase of mobile technology has jumped start the revolution of online education. Students are far more familiar with computers that ever before. There are many changes that would have to be developed to create an online program that assists the instructor and teaches the student at the same time. Will there have to be personnel changes? Would the institute hire online only Professors? These are some of the factors to creating an effective online program, but the need of online education has increased and must be solved. At the end of the day, there are more positives than negatives for adding more online courses; it is just inevitable that students will take an online course sometime in the near future. Online education has come a long way to make it easier for students to achieve a higher education. It can be time consuming and beneficial at the same time. for the individual that is organized, determined, and motivated to self educate themselves. Many are skeptical that an instructor is not teaching, but just pushing information over the internet to the course. It is the responsibility of the student to ask questions; to improve his online learning experience. The rising demand for online courses will continue to climb and be as effective as or better than a traditional classroom. Though, it can all change with the intentions the institution has with the visualization and authenticity of their online education programs.