online degree programs psychology | The real reason for the lack of online education acceptance
OK so you’ve read my posts about what the Sloan report has to say about why 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning.
But as I delve into the report in more detail, I see what I personally beleive is the biggest reason why this is:
According to the report, over 72% of the CAO’s beleive that online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.
Although the report doesn’t confirm it, I beleive that these CAO’s also believe that online education is still best ONLY for those types of students.
What I mean by that is this:
While it is true that the majority of CAO’s beleive that online education is becoming a more critical part of their institution’s long term strategy, I think that they see this growth only for students that can’t take advangtage of face-to-face traditional classroom programs.
Remember, as with all things internet, it begins with a split between the “brick and mortar” world and the virtual world. Then it is later embraced. Think about how Amazon lost money for years and now all the major retailers have an online presence for the typical shopper. Now replace the shopper with a college student…see what I mean?
So these CAO’s think that there is still much more value to the typical college bound student to have the brick and mortar classrooms and the face-to-face instruction than a virtual online class or degree program.
But I think that there are many college bound students, in addtion to the typical “non-traditional” student population, who would love to take online classes rather than cozy up to a smelly dorm room.
Take MySpace and FaceBook as an example. Can’t these be seen as Virtual dorm rooms?
OK so that’s my opinion. Am I right? Don’t know. but it makes sense to me anyway 