I’ve taken a bunch of classes online. Some were much better than others, it depends mainly on the instructor, and how much they give you to work with. The bad ones were basically “read the textbook chapters x-xx, then take this quiz and submit your answers”. For the good ones, the instructor posted a lot of supplemental materials and exercises, and there was an active forum where students could discuss the current material, ask questions, etc.
Don’t take an online class because you think it’ll be easier than the classroom version. There’s usually a lot more reading and more work than the classroom versions. If you’re taking more than one or two online classes, keeping track of what assignments are due, when they’re due, keeping up with the textbook and other reading materials, participating in discussions or other online activities, submitting assignments, etc, is a daunting task. So don’t take an online class if you’re not self motivated and disciplined. Since no one is pushing you, or reminding you to get things done, it’s easy to fall behind and never get caught up. Some (lazy) instructors give you access to all your assignments and reading in the beginning, then allow you to submit your stuff at your leisure. If you get one of these, it’s absolutely essential that you plan everything out and do work on it every week. It’s really easy to put things off until the last minute, then get swamped trying to finish a semester of work in the last few weeks (or less).
For what it’s worth, my classes were mostly technical computer/programming type classes, and I spent around 10-15 hours a week on each class. I was taking 6 classes at once, and I spent around 80 hours a week on schoolwork total. At first I thought I’d be able to hold down a part time job and do my schoolwork in my spare time. I quickly realized that wasn’t going to work at all. I was on the computer from morning to night almost every day.
I’ve taken courses in a variety of areas, mostly general-education courses. For the most part, other people have discussed the technical nature of online courses.
I will give two criticisms of online courses. The first is that the instructor needs to maintain “classroom” discipline, and if there is no moderation, it’s a miserable experience for the students who take the course seriously. One summer, I took a gen-ed course online. Most of the other students attended other colleges and were in it for the credits, since their grades wouldn’t factor into their GPA. Many of them treated the boards like a social hour, and there was some trolling. The prof was nowhere to be found. My guess is that she decided that, since we were responsible for a lot of work outside the message boards, the boards just weren’t that important. After a while, I gave up on the boards and concentrated on the outside work.
The second is that some brick-and-mortar colleges treat online courses as pure profit, which they pretty much are. Unfortunately, that means that they try to develop courses in areas that are not very suited for that particular medium. No one I know has ever had a good experience in an online writing course, including me. I realize that it may be confirmation bias, but that notion has been confirmed by a professor friend of mine who refuses to teach writing online. IIRC, he tried it once and hated it. I also think that a lot of courses that require hands-on experience don’t work; I took a TV production class as a hybrid (half-classroom, half-online); despite my A, I didn’t learn much of anything because I didn’t have enough time with the equipment.
One thing I liked about online courses is that I could be a little more creative in how I approached some assignments. For example, I took a hybrid course in archives. One of our assignments was to visit an archives and write a short paper. I chose the Prelinger Archives that is affiliated with the Internet Archive. I interviewed Rick Prelinger and wrote and produced a nine-minute NPR-style feature piece. The project got an A, although there were better ways to do it. I may yet pursue it again to get a documentary out of it.
Robin