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There is an excellent op-ed column in The New York Times by Mark Edmundson, a professor at the University of Virginia:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/opinion/the-trouble-with-online-education.html?hp He asks if online education can ever be education of the very best sort. There are online educational options that can even exceed conventional classes.

Key learning considerations:

1. Classes should help students growHow It Works – Live Salesforce Training
2. Teaching is a matter of dialog
3. Teachers should constantly work to figure out what students are able to do and how they can develop
4. Classes are defined by the syllabus. But there is also a considerable measure of improvisation against that disciplining background.
5. Online education is a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It tends to be a monologue and not a real dialogue.
6. Online classes are addressed to no one in particular
7. Online classes have an anonymous quality
8. There is nothing you could get from that online course that you couldn’t get from a good book on the subject.
9. A truly memorable class is a collaboration between teacher and students
10. It’s a one-time-only event
11. Learning at its best is a collective enterprise
12. Real courses are where students and teachers come together and create an immediate and vital community of learning
13. Internet learning promises to make intellectual life more sterile and abstract than it already is — and also, for teachers and for students alike, far more lonely.

Counterpoint: How Internet learning can work and even, thrive:

Internet training that is static and relies on videos and slides is doomed. This environment lacks the necessary exchanges between student and teacher. There is no dynamic collaboration. Fulfillment of intellectual curiosity is lacking.

Instead, begin with a live instructor led online classroom environment. Continue with collaboration tools such as Webex and Gotomeeting. Create online learning settings that include screen sharing and collaborative exercises. Encourage conversations. Add video cameras. Allow questions throughout the class.

Support students with coaching and mentoring for exceptional outcomes. This model is not server based mass training.  Instead, it is personalized training that just leverages technology without students having to be in a physical classroom. Internet training in this context is effective because it just removes the negatives.

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