I am a fan of online education. There are obvious advantages to online education: people can attend schools that are geographically distant, they can take classes at a pace and schedule convenient for them, universities can control and standardize course content, professors can be absent, etc. Of course, there are also weaknesses of online education versus traditional education models.

Many traditional classes are not very creative; students sit in chairs and take notes while professors lecture. Occasionally some students (often just a small subset of the class) may ask questions or offer comments. The students read from textbooks outside of class, take tests, and may have other assignments to turn in. Certainly none of this is lost in a quality online program.

In the school where I taught online, the lectures were recorded on video, and notes were provided; these resources were available as many times as the students desired, whenever they desired them. ALL students were graded on their course participation, meaning everyone was motivated to engage in the discussions (e.g. make forum posts). Books were mailed to the students, tests were administered online, etc.

Many have seen "networking" as a weakness of online courses, but I disagree. Just because we have a new medium of communication (the Internet) that does not mean meaningful, personal communication does not take place. In the past people communicated intimately via letters, then by telephone; now we use the Internet. I personally know a dozen couples who met and got to know each other on the Internet enough to meet in RL and eventually marry. Why shouldn't relationships formed online be valuable and helpful later in life? I have RL friends I met through online BBS or forums, and often they are of a higher "quality" than ones I first meet face-to-face. Why? Face-to-face, my meetings are often random; I have no control over who I'll meet. On the Internet, though, I've become acquainted with authors of books or articles I've enjoyed, leaders of institutions I've contacted, etc.

Online education (a form of distance education) may not be the best choice for everybody, but it's definitely "good."

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Ya that is right. i too feel that online education is not all what we want in life. As we r a living being our overall development is only possible when we intract with the masses/ only then we can leran more and do great.
after all we r not a virus that 24hrs sit in front of the computre. Even only when we intract with masses we may fall in love and the get our sole mate. After all in life we need to live with love not with anything.
So i prefer to stay learning in class room than in online.
Surley for reference i would use online internet, Not as a integerate part of my life.
I am a nature boy, so i love to dwel out not in a room with a computer.

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Assuming we are talking about accredited online education, here is my opinion.

I think online education is only for the strong-willed. Because most aspects about it are virtual, it becomes difficult to force yourself to do the material. If the course is designed to go at whatever pace you are comfortable at, it could take you a long time to finish.

In many classroom courses, one of the requirements for a grade is to do a presentation. It's very hard to have this requirement for online courses, which may be a good thing if you're afraid of public speaking. It seems that online courses are tougher, because you really have to prove that you know the material. In a classroom, you are sitting there for a few hours each week absorbing knowledge. In a classroom setting, you may discuss the assigned reading in a group discussion, but online, you may have to write a written response to it. Online classes seem to have much more writing assignments.

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Anythings better than getting up at 7 every morning lol... it depends what your learning online.. languages it's better to do with people unlike computing which is better from home

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i havent tried taking a class online but i did try to do SAT prep and i think it was a failure because i got distracted so easily because i was at my house and it was so boring so i did not get a lot out of it, that's why now i'm taking a class now. but most people the main reason they take online classes is beacause it's easy but i think it's boring and unhelpfull but that's just my opinion.

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