[conservatism_IS_compassion]

There’s a place for online schools, but I like the structure and the organization of traditional classrooms.

It is good to be forced to meet at a certain time or place to study a subject intensely for an hour. It is a plus to have a knowledge area expert leading and explaining.

I’ve tried both, and I definitely prefer the traditional format.

I can relate to the point that if you don’t have a schedule, you won’t match the performance of those who do. It’s the whole “Failing to plan is planning to fail” thing. OTOH there is the concept of “flipping the classroom” advocated by Salmon Khan. That is, free online lectures and online drill-and-practice can replace in-class lectures and textbooks, allowing students to use the classroom strictly for direct interaction with the teacher and other competency models, and thereby meet, and be challenged to surpass, scheduled learning. If a student is behind, staying in lockstep with the class is pure stress, and less productive than catching up from where you actually are would be. So the fixed schedule of a classroom has inherent drawbacks.

If you check out khanacademy.org you’ll see why I might think Salman Khan deserves a Nobel Prize (assuming that’s still an honor).

[xzins]

I would love for online education to surpass the traditional for the sole purpose of recapturing the education institution from liberalism. It provides the best opportunity to do so through classes offered by such schools as Hillsdale.

However, the strength of the traditional method is presence. Presence is such a great advantage. It gives everything from camraderie to esprit de corps to direct interaction to structure and organization.

Online must find a way to match or exceed those. I like your idea of online having the advantage of catalogued lectures/lessons one can use to catch up or forge ahead. That is a strength of online.

I’m thinking that something like “go to meeting.com” would be a work around. There’d have to be some real means of instructer observation of real-time student work. There’d be a means of questioning, give-and-take. Students must be able to immediately and completely view any work the teacher wants to do on chart, whiteboard, etc.