Online vs Traditional Education free essay sample

Most people believe that online education is easy. People believe that students are just sitting in front of the computer; they can switch tabs and enjoy social media, listen to music and speak on the phone while attending their class online. Reality is that online education requires time management, discipline, and the same responsibilities that a traditional education does. Online college and traditional classes require that students have excellent time management. Traditional classes allow students to have the freedom of managing their time differently compared to online students. Online schools have more structured time lines as to when participation must be completed. Online schools and traditional schools measure and grade their students participation and commitment. In traditional classrooms students voluntarily participate in class discussions, students are required to participate for a minimum of three times per class period. Traditional students attend class one day a week and manage their time differently compared to online students. Online students also have a minimum requirement of participation per week, and they are required to attend online forum classes for a minimum of three times a week. Online students are required to participate on discussion boards with other students, with a minimum posting participation of eight times a week. Therefore, online students have a wider perspective of opinions including people that may struggle compared to traditional environment. Online students must be able to manage their time for participation and also to continue with full time jobs and family duties. Online students have the flexibility of participating remotely from their work at lunchtime and even if they are on vacation. Online school students can set time to continue their class instead of having to take time off from school while completing other activities. Students that attend a traditional school can only miss one day of class, this could be a challenge should personal emergency, vacation time, or work related issues shall arise. Online school allows the opportunity to study remotely and comply with attendance and participation. Not only students can access their class from a laptop, they can access it from smartphones applications. These features provide great tools for online school compared to traditional schools. â€Å"Not only do students need to monitor their progress in an ongoing fashion and adjust their strategies for learning based on their progress, they also need to maintain a time management schedule in order to complete online learning activities in the allotted timeframes. † (Orellana, Hudgins, Simonson, 2009, p. 470). Online students must self-discipline and commit themselves to meet the deadlines imposed by their online teacher. People believe that because online students do not meet with their teachers weekly they can skip participation or extend their homework. This belief is incorrect online students are asses based on their timely participation and homework submission. Online and traditional classes provide students with a syllabus to guide them with due dates and the number of points their homework is worth. This guide helps the student comply with due dates and assignments, and impose responsibility on the student to meet these due dates. For traditional students discipline comes easier, due to the fact that they attend class physically it creates a sense of responsibility turning their paperwork on time. Online students must discipline themselves to turn homework on time and complete team papers by specific dates based on their commitment with the team. Both online and traditional schools assign teams on each class to students to participate on weekly homework and final paperwork or power point presentations. Separate from the weekly team homework, individual assignments are still also mandatory for students. Traditional instructors offer a wide variety of assignments, quizzes, test, and oral presentations in order to comply for students with participation. Online instructors tend to follow a design of assignments that are practical. Online classes can help people learning self-discipline in school as well in their personal life. Online school comes also with many other responsibilities that traditional school does not have. Students believe that transitioning from traditional education to online will alleviate some responsibilities, but that is incorrect. Contrary to this belief online education has the same commitments and regulations that traditional education does. Online education has teams as well, which creates a bigger challenge and responsibility compare when you are on traditional school teams. Teams are assigned based on the time zone, but not always creating an immediate communication challenge. Team members that do not have the same time zone will have issues at urgent times of communication if needed. A good example is, student A, from team one lives in Florida, student B lives in California, their time zone is completely different, and when student A could be completing the team assignment for submission, and needs to communicate with student B he may be still sleeping. This could also be an issue if students want to set a team meeting to discuss future homework. Student must commit with their team and set expectations and communication trends in order to avoid these situations. Traditional education students are in the same time zone, are local, and interact with each other at class and they can set meeting locations to discuss and complete assignments. Online education students also have the responsibility of communicating with their instructors, as they do not meet face to face on a weekly basis. Student must ensure that they communicate via forum, email, and if available via phone to discuss any question or doubt that they may have. This could also create a challenge because the professor may not be available immediately for the student and it could create a conflict if both individual time zones are different. Both forms of education are excellent. They both provide students with the same quality of education and they prepare students to the real world that they will confront in the line of business that they choose. Both teach students time management, discipline and responsibilities. Students learn how to balance their personal, academic, and work time without compromising any of them. Both forms of education teach students to work with others as a team, promoting teamwork. Both require students to participate weekly and comply with homework and projects. No matter what kind form of education a student decide to participate; they need to ensure that their commitment and dedication is for long term. Online education has the same priorities and responsibilities that traditional education has.