

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom - physcab
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/?hp

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msluyter
Sampling bias? Could those who enroll in online college or continuing
education courses be more highly motivated for some reason? Or perhaps those
who take online courses are savvier technologically and/or better at self
directed study, both of which probably correlate to doing better overall?

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steveplace
Yep. Perhaps they should put it into two different buckets, namely voluntary
and compulsory.

The kids that fail english have to take a 6 week credit makeup whereby they
sit in front of a computer and do nothing. Could be the kid and not the
medium.

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travisjeffery
I would love to see people try to even attempt an Advanced Pure Mathematics
course online without the aid of an instructor in case you (and you will)
require some help with the material.

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xiaoma
Sitting in front of a computer, they may be in the best place to get that
help.

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teeja
SRI is the same org that initiated studies of Remote Viewing in the 1970s. So
quite possible their study was done with psychics.

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christopherolah
It strikes me as unfair to judge an organization based on what they did almost
40 years ago...

Also, lots of universities/scientific organizations (and I think even the US
military) were messing around with that sort of stuff at the time.

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aristoxenus
SRI did also host the invention of the computer mouse:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_(computing)#Early_mice>

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glen
Really good article. We at www.nixty.com are creating a platform that supports
traditional ways of education, but also facilitates informal learning. The
future, as Mr. Reiger pointed out in the article, is definitely going to be a
mixture of both. The challenge, and believe me it is a challenge, is to create
an atmosphere that supports both the traditional and emerging ways of online
learning.

If you are interested in helping us beta test the product, then please sign up
at www.nixty.com. Thanks!

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danw
If you know where to find it, the BBC doc on the Open University is worth
watching <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lz2p5>

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jcromartie
I'd venture a guess that anything remotely resembling experience or _doing_
will beat school any day. There might be exceptions for rote learning tasks
like multiplication or history.

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elcron
There are calculators for multiplication, once you know the basics you don't
want to have to multiply arbitrarily large numbers by hand.

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Mz
FWIW: I've taken both regular college classes and online college classes. The
online classes do not give you any credit for just showing up/attendance.
Because they are viewed with skepticism, they tend to be more rigorous. In
order to pass, you actually have to prove your knowledge to a greater degree
than with a lot of the multi-guess tests found in regular classrooms. I have
generally found online classes to be of better quality than most classes I've
taken "in person".

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abless
sclipo.com

