Online education is one of the most rapidly developing spheres all over the world as the global situation connected with the pandemic crisis made people reconsider their values and forced everybody to change their habitual lifestyles. While more students all over the world choose online schooling, I am more interested in researching the problem of the quality of such learning and its possible dominance in the future.
The thesis statement for my research paper is “Despite numerous advantages online education is providing, there are multiple debates about negative issues connected with its quality, its practicability, and possible absolute dominance in the future.” Under the “absolute dominance,” I imply that conventional ways of learning may disappear and become a part of the history as modern technologies take their place by offering more convenient methods of receiving education.
For this research, I used various techniques, including clustering, second data analysis, and freewriting. The most useful approach for this assignment was analyzing the information in peer-reviewed articles and websites of different universities, including Florida National University, which provided useful statistics about the global investments reaching $18.66 billion in 2019, and materials about the local programs, developed for online education (Li and Lalani).
Writing about the future perspectives of online education seemed to be a good topic for discussion because it is a subject that today concerns billions of people all over the world. However, there are also numerous other studies to be done in this sphere, such as the development of programs aimed at educating and supporting teachers. It is a big problem as many of them faced the issue of learning how to operate numerous programs and invent new techniques capable of providing online education of the same quality as traditional schooling.
I found the issue of future perspectives of the online system of education to be more interesting for further research. There are many reasons for choosing this particular topic for studying. First, it is a universal subject, which is relevant to people all over the world. The population is concerned with the future of education systems because the quality of online schooling is in many cases not equal to the traditional one, and it results in a decrease in its quality. Numerous debates about this issue prove that it presents a serious problem for society, even for such developed countries as the United States. Second, I am interested in researching the topic in the light of the local projects, determining the contribution they make to the global market.
The subject of online education development is also interesting for me due to the active participation of local facilities in this global progress. For example, Florida National University offers a Mass Open Online Course (MOOC) aimed at “large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web” (“The impact of online colleges on education”). It proves that online education in the USA is rapidly developing, meeting the increasing demand in this sphere by creating various tools and programs aimed at helping students receive an education. For this reason, studying the subject was interesting and useful for further work.
During my research, I have found many sources, which can be useful for my future work. Among them is an article by Shivangi Dhavan which offers results of numerous researches. It brings the conclusion that this system requires more responsibility from students, who are “not sufficiently prepared for balancing their work, family, and social lives with their study life in an online learning environment” (Dhavan 8). Thus, it is a useful foundation for my research on the project. Another article I have chosen is by Cathy Li and Farah Lalani, it contained useful information about the advantages the new system can offer, such as time preservation, and lower costs of education. All of this information became a basis for my future work and further conclusions to be made.
Online education is an important issue concerning people all over the world and requires finding new ideas for increasing its quality and providing access to learning for all populations. Through my research, I hope to learn about the reasons for the lowering in the quality of distance schooling and find solutions for fixing this situation. It would allow convincing people that this modern approach can be even more convenient and beneficial.
References
Dhavan, Shivangi. “Online Learning: A Panacea in the Time of COVID-19 Crisis.” Journal of Educational Technology Systems, vol. 49, no. 1, 2020, pp. 5-22. Web.
“The Impact of Online Colleges on Education.” Florida National University, 2019. Web.
Li, Cathy, and Farah Lalani. “The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Changed Education Forever. This is How”. World Economic Forum, 2020. Web.