Week 7, Lecture Notes

Virtual Education is thought of as 'radical' yet it has been going on for years in other countries such as Australia, because of the distance some children had to travel to school.

With things like Open University courses, you can study at your own pace in your own time, and contact your tutor if you are struggling. Although I see this is a good idea and is often successful, I'm not sure this type of learning would work well for everyone. In my personal opinion, having seminars and discussing work with other students is just as important as learning the work itself. You see other people's opinions and view things from other angles you may not have considered.

Even though learning online creates a new online community, I, personally, prefer learning in more traditional ways, as you not only learn the set work, but with things like group work you learn social skills and how to communicate and work with eachother. Looking at what Evans said about reading other comments helps to 'confirm your understanding or modify it in the light of new information,' he seems to think that this is a successful way of discussing ideas. Personally, I think face to face discussion is a lot more successful but I can see this is a decent alternative when studying online.