What is Distance Education?
Distance Learning is a medium that enables learning to occur when the student and the instructor are physically separated from each other in time and place. At Robeson Community College, these courses may be offered via the Internet or the North Carolina Information Highway and have the same course description, basic content, and credit hours as the traditional courses. Instruction may be synchronous (requires all participants to be online at the same moment in time) or asynchronous (learning “anytime, anywhere” meaning that the learning process of a particular subject is performed without fixed class hours in classrooms).
Some students find that Distance Learning courses are more rigorous and require more preparation than the traditional courses - over eight hours of preparation time per week. Generally, students stay at home and take the course, but they may be required to come to campus for an orientation and for the completion of some requirements, like exams and oral presentations.
These courses are appealing because they allow more flexibility of instruction than traditional classes, are accessible to students at home or at work, and require few trips to campus. To help students remain current in their studies, faculty have established specific tests and assignment dates. Students must first decide if this delivery style is “right” for them and if they have time to take the course. Preparation time for these classes is MORE, not less. Complete the Distance Learning Self-Test to determine whether an online course is right for you.
Computer Skills Requirements
You should be able to:
- Start up and shut down computer system and peripherals.
- Identify and use icons, windows, menus.
- Start an application and create a document.
- Name, save, retrieve, revise a document.
- Use printing options, insert and eject floppy disk and CD-ROM.
- Copy documents from hard disk to floppy disk and vice versa.
- Create and name/rename subdirectories/folders.
- Open and work with more than one application at a time.
Word Processing
You should be able to:
- Enter and edit text and copy and move text.
- Copy and move blocks of text.
- Change text format an d style, set margins, line spacing and tabs.
- Check spelling, grammar, word usage.
- Insert page numbers.
Setup, Maintenance, Troubleshooting
You should be able to:
- Protect and care for floppy disks.
- Clean computer components and printer.
- Make backup copies of key applications and documents.
- Use self-help resources to diagnose and correct common hardware and printing problems.
- Install and upgrade an application.
- Maintain proper operating environment for computer and peripherals.
- Protect against computer viruses.
- Obtain technical assistance resources from you Internet Service Provider.
Internet
You should be able to:
- Connect to the Internet or an on-line service.
- Use Electronic Mail (compose, send, retrieve, read, respond and forward messages and attach files).
- Access and use resources on the Internet.
- Obtain/maintain an account on the Internet or an on-line service that provides Internet access.
- Connect a computer to a modem and telephone line for dial-in access.
top
Advantages of Online Courses
- The majority of students (79%) take fully online courses because of the convenience of not coming to campus. Fully online courses consistently have more females.
- You work from home, avoid heavy traffic at rush hours, and save money for childcare.
- On the average, students who enroll in fully online courses are older than those who enroll in web-enhanced or comparable face-to-face courses. Ageism is not a concern at all. The salience of age is minimized and older learners can enjoy an equality norm by contributing their experiences to the community learning.
- Roughly half of students who take fully online courses are working full-time.
- Those who choose fully online courses are not those independent learners, but the high energy students who succeed in all modalities. A significant and necessary demographic attribute of learners who can make it in online courses is high energy. If you are highly energetic in learning, chances are high for you to succeed.
- The majority of faculty indicate that more interaction occurs in their web and web-enhanced courses than in their comparable face-to-face sections. They also indicate that they feel this interaction is of higher quality than what they typically see. Take an online course and enjoy more interaction of high quality than other types of class delivery.
Disadvantages of Online Courses
- On the average, fully online courses have slightly lower success rates and higher withdrawal rates than either their face-to-face or web-enhanced counterparts.
- Students withdraw from web courses for a variety of reasons with the most reported including technology issues, an underestimation of the amount of work required for course completion, and personal conflicts.
- Having considered technology issues, an understanding of the amount of work required for course completion and personal conflicts, fully online courses have somewhat lower success rates and higher withdrawal rates than others.
