Learn in Your Pajamas
- Accredited Degree Programs
- Online Certificate Programs
- Online Doctoral Programs
- Online Degree Programs
- Online Masters Degree
Isn’t technology great? In the last 15 years, the Internet has taken the world by storm. This technology allows you to research a topic, find directions, book a flight, buy products, and even talk to people on the other side of the world. You name it; you can find it on the Internet. One great advantage that is finally starting to mature is online education. Instead of having to get up, get dressed, and drive to your local college campus, all you have to do is log in and complete your participation and assignments. How convenient is that?
Online education is growing by the day. More and more colleges are setting up online programs for their most popular degree programs. Some colleges are set up strictly for online degree programs. Most of the schools are set up in a similar manner. Classes are kept small, usually no larger than 15 people. To begin your school day, you will log in with your user name and password. You will then go to a web page that is set up like a bulletin board, with messages from students and instructors at the forefront, followed by the replies to those messages. This is where the instructor posts assignments. This setup is obviously different from a traditional classroom in that there is no direct contact with the instructor or other students. To accommodate for this, instructors post discussion questions that all students are required to respond to. Students are also required to participate regularly. They participate by responding to the questions of others, which spawns relevant conversations about the discussion topics. This is very effective since students can use their own experiences to answer the questions, can ask questions of other students and the instructor, and can learn from everybody in the class. This is one of the reasons why online classes are very popular with working adults. In addition to discussion questions, students have either an individual assignment (usually a paper to write), or a team assignment. The team assignments require students to interact through the website, email, and even telephone with other team members to complete the work. The team is graded on how well the assignment is done, and on what other team members rate as their participation.
Online degree programs do have their limits. Some types of classes cannot be done over the Internet. Any course requiring a lab is very hard to simulate through a computer. Medical school and engineering courses do not translate very well to a computer environment, and still have to be done through actually attending class. Many of the purely academic programs are available. The basic degree programs, such as business, management, education, IT, accounting, and law are available through most schools. Many schools offer associate, bachelor, and master level degree programs. Some even offer doctorate programs.
If you want to get your degree, but don’t want to have to go to a traditional campus, online school is for you. The Internet has made it possible for you to improve yourself and further your education without ever having to change out of your pajamas.