What's the value of an online education?

 Happy return to the school year!  After a little summer break, we are back in action.  And, talking about education again.

I've talked about online education before - I generally think it presents some interesting new options, but it's fairly untested.  And you certainly know I'm not anti-technology or anti-choice.  So I read with interest a set of surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center.  One survey was a telephone survey to 2,000+ random adults (the "public") and the other was a online survey to over 1,000 college presidents (2 and 4 year, private and public).  You can find the link to the study here - but here are some interesting highlights:

1. The general public doesn't value online learning very highly.  Only 29% of the public says online courses offer an equal value compared with courses taken in a classroom. Half (51%) of the college presidents surveyed say online courses provide the same value.  What's the difference?  Perception.  A Harvard education is viewed to be superior to most other undergraduate colleges - but it's not necessarily true.  It might be the best for some students, but other students might do better in a college with smaller class sizes and a different choice of majors.  But Harvard remains "on the top" because of perception.  The issue of perception arises after you've graduated, when you're trying to get a job on the basis of your academics.  Online education is new, and mostly unproven.  It will need to prove that it's not a fluffy option for people trying to do minimal work. 

2. ....and yet,  Roughly one-in-four college graduates (23%) report that they have taken a class online. Not surprisingly, the share doubles to 46% among those who have graduated in the past ten years (I mean, really, 10 years ago there wasn't even Google). Among all adults who have taken a class online, 39% say the format’s educational value is equal to that of a course taken in a classroom.  But on this point, how would they know?  I would argue that the value depends on the course and the curriculum - is it a topic that can be easily (or best?) taught online?  Compare a law school lecture - where minimal student input is expected or required - with a class on teaching methods, where presumably you need to try your methods out on other students.

3.  Despite recent evidence to the contrary, digital textbooks may well conquer.  Nearly two-thirds of college presidents (62%) anticipate that 10 years from now, more than half of the textbooks used by their undergraduate students will be entirely digital.  I believe this.  Tablet computing is taking over, and it's replacing the 15 pounds of textbooks I carried in high school.

There are some other interesting factoids, like, how plagiarism is on the rise due to the Internet.  I find this fascinating - this was simply not an option when I was in high school.  Perhaps we'll explore this issue in a future post, because I think this is definitely a downside to technology, and I'd like to research what teachers and schools are doing to combat the problem.  (Part of the solution might be to flip the classroom a la the Khan Academy - do lectures at home and homework at school).  Another interesting point is that colleges have yet to figure out how to regulate the use of smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the classroom.  Do you permit wireless?  Do you require wireless?  How do you keep students engaged if they can access Angry Birds at any time?

Worth some thinking!