With the changing world and developing technology many new things have started to happen and in the education sector, perhaps the most happening things are online classes and online courses. And are they worthy or effective that naturally comes to us as a burning question.
At first I would like to mention that online class and online course are two different things with different applications and perspectives. Online courses may or may not have online classes. And online class may or may not come with the perspective of a course with due examinations and certifications. Let me explain this by some examples.
What are Online Course and Online Class
An online course is a study curriculum related to any subject. It can be a standard degree or certificate program. It can have exams, and exams can be online or offline in some cases. And it may have online classes or even may not.
In an online course you have to apply and enroll in it through online and yours study materials will be sent to you online. You have to study those at your home on your own. If there are online classes available with the course then you can view those classes. Otherwise you only have to study those study materials and books. You have to download assignments and complete them in due time and upload them back. You have to do some project work that will be given to you by online communications and you have to submit project reports online. And at the end there can be exams, and exams can be online also, or sometimes offline or sometimes it is but you have to go to a test center and appear in the exam at their supervision. Many online course organizations take exams offline or online through some exam centers because pure online exams are often targeted with questions of trust and credibility. And as the exam gets over there are usually certificates which are awarded and sent via online. This is a standard online course.
Some courses can be without any terminal exams or evaluations and certifications. For example, an online guitar course may not have any exam and certification. You may do the course just to learn to play the guitar well. But if the course is of any academic degree or certification then there are usually exams and certificates. So this is what a normal online course can be, and as you see, it may or may not have online classes within it.
Now on the other hand, online classes are such classes where there will be some audio-visuals or in some rare cases only audio to view or listen via online for understanding and learning some topic of some subject. Such audio-visuals are usually pre-recorded and uploaded for you students to access, download and view. And there also can be audio-visuals which are directly broadcasted by real-time streaming. There can be one or both in any online class setup. Online classes can be a part of any online course or can be supplementary to some standard offline class and course. As for example, you can attain an online tutorial class to support and backup your school education. In that case the course is run by the school and you can parallely attain some online classes to make your school performances better.
So the question of the worthiness of an online course and online class are two different issues that need to be treated separately.
Is an Online Course Worthy ?
The question of worthiness of an online course is mainly at the point of its evaluation process or examinations. People doubt online exams and as a result the certificates awarded on the basis of online exams are usually not too much trusted. So as a solution to this problem, many online courses arrange exams in standard offline setup or may be online but not from home but from some preassigned bonafide test center.
How Worthy is an Online Class ?
As I have said before, online classes can be a part of an online course or it can be supplementary to some other course. If it is with an online course then the worthiness of it is usually measured with the worthiness of the course itself. Though ideally, the worth of an online class should be measured on the efficiency at delivery of information and assistance in learning. If the presentation of the subject, the quality of the audio-visual and interactivity of an online class is good in it can be expected that it can efficiently educate one in that subject matter and thus the worth of that online class can be taken as good. If it helps you with your school assignments, make complex subject matters clear and easy to you and as a result you perform better in your school, then won’t you call your online class a good one?
So now as you see, worth is actually not in the name but in the purpose. Online course and online class usually have different purposes….sometimes the purpose can partially overlap but it is not always and not totally. Thus they are to be recognized and evaluated at their own unique purpose. And in case an online course or an online class meet up your purpose, then it must be considered worthy for you.
With emerging technology and new application concepts, the world of education will be more enriched and thus we can expect even more robust and reliable online courses as well as online classes in future.