EPT
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Computers can be a very helpful tool for offering classes to students without requiring trips to distant campuses. They also offer several major advantages for administering standardized tests (high school exams, SAT, GRE, etc). In both cases there are what I believe to be very serious drawbacks that are getting overlooked during our transition (at least in the USA) from tradiational learning/testing to more computer based classes.
I have taken some online classes while working on my masters in education. The classes were mostly about the use of computer-based technology for teaching and learning. For these classes, the use of an online classroom environment with electronic assignment submission seemed appropriate. The majority of what I learned was self-taught however, with only a moderate amount of guidance from the instructor and online resources. Fortunately, compared to the average american student, I am computer-savvy (not so much compared to the TL demographic) so the need to teach myself the curriculum wasn't a significant problem.
Currently I am enrolled in an online math class through a community college in a different county. The curriculum is actually much easier than the math I had to take as an undergraduate physics major, so I don't anticipate having any trouble scoring highly in the course. I recently decided this course would give me a good opportunity to answer a question I had: Are math courses made a lot tougher due to being offered online? I hypothesized that I would be required to do large amounts of written math while sitting in front of a computer. I also hypothesized that I would need to enter in complicated algebraic answers using my keyboard. My final prediction was that the environment would discourage (although not preclude me) from using a physical textbook (rather than an E-book) as a learning aid.
Today I have reached the conclusion that all three of my predictions were correct. The homework, although printable (according to the links on the page) is structured such that the next part of a question doesn't show up until you complete the first part. For example, question 1a asks you to find the slope of a line and question 2b is a multiple choice question with four graphs shown, asking you to choose which graph is consistent with the original equation. This discourages you from doing written work away from the computer. The quizzes are timed (1 hour per quiz) and structured very similarly to the homework. I felt strongly discouraged from printing out the quiz, taking it to my desk, doing it all out, and then coming back to the computer to type in my answers to each question.
Why am I making such a big deal out of having to do the math while sitting at my computer? I don't know what your desk is like, but there is nowhere on my computer desk where I can fit a sheet of paper and comfortably switch between doing written work and typing (not to mention having room for the mouse). Such desks do exist, but are not common. What I've been doing as a temporary solution is keeping a tray table (the ones you put your dinner on while you are watching tv in the living room) next to me for my pen, paper, and calculator. It's quite awkward switching between the tray table all the way on the left, the keyboard in the middle, and the mouse on the right (not to mention the monitor), but I'm managing fine because I'm not actually having any difficulty 'learning' this easy material. But for a student who isn't ironically an expert in the curriculum, this is not a trivial problem at all. The student will make more mistakes due to the layout of the work space. Additionally, the student might do less work by hand and try to do more in their head due to the inconvenience of writing while on the computer (I've seen this as a teacher also).
As for my third hypothesis, that students won't use their textbook, I have to be fair. Students are encouraged to buy a new textbook which comes with an access code to the online software for the online math homeworks/quizzes. Students are allowed, if they choose, to spend less money and purchase the E-book, which also comes with the necessary access code for the online math classroom. How is it the online classroom's fault if students choose to purchase just the E-book instead of the physical textbook?
It's hard enough to find a way to write down your scratch work while doing the homework, let alone have a textbook next to you for reference. Of course, when you get to something that confuses you, you can change to another desk where the textbook is, study, then move back to the computer. But that is far from ideal. While you are with the textbook you won't have access to the work you are in the middle of unless you start hand-copying the questions or printing them piecemeal. In other words, students will be discouraged and therefore less likely to refer to the textbook... and this is fatal when you consider how much less you are directly taught by your instructor in an online classroom than a real-life one (we watch a 10-15 minute video for each section as our only 'direct' instruction). You might be thinking this: "So why not just use the E-book? This way you can have the ebook in the background (or on a second monitor) while doing your homework.
You can do that. In fact, that's probably preferable to trying to use the physical textbook while taking this online section of this math class. However, I find a real textbook much easier to use for technical subjects (like math) than an E-book. The software for navigating the E-book isn't that trivially easy to use, and you can't easily flip back and forth between multiple parts of the textbook. The E-book is fine for a strong student who only needs to refer to it occasionally, but will spell doom for those who are having difficulty learning the material as it is.
Out of the 20 or so sections of this math class being offered at this college, only 2 are online sections. Students are not by any measure being forced to take the class online. It works perfectly for me, given my situation. Hopefully the other members of my section also will benefit more from the flexibility of an online classroom than the disadvantages I've tried to lay out. So why am I even bothering to write so much about this?
There is currently a push for more and more learning to occur online. It saves the institution a lot of money, but they get to charge the full price. I didn't get any type of a discount by taking this math class online. Meanwhile, my instructor doesn't have to meet with me 2-3 times a week to teach me math. She grades the midterm and final exam by hand, but the rest is handled by the computer. She just has to answer questions and occasionally moderate an online discussion where students can discuss how to solve the various types of math problems in their homework. The school doesn't even have to provide a room or office for any of the class materials to occur. The subscriptions to Blackboard, as well as the online math classroom software, are surely much less expensive than the alternative.
I'm okay with online learning being one service offered by institutions of higher education. It should be done because it provides a service to students; not just because it does a service to the institution.
By the way, online classes aren't my only concern. Many standardized tests are offered by computer now instead of on paper. Again, I fully recognize there are many advantages to this. However, there are some drawbacks. First of all, if it's a math based class, the desk you are sitting at probably won't be well equipped for you to be able to do written work AND have a keyboard AND a mouse AND a monitor. Written work will become much more uncomfortable. Also, I like to write on written tests, whether it be to place pen slashes through incorrect multiple choice answers I am rejecting, or to circle/underline words in a question, or to write something down next to the question to assist me in my thinking. With a computer based test you can't do that (the testing center will probably get pretty pissed if you start writing in sharpie on the monitor). My dependency on writing during a test is actually pretty low compared to the average student, but in public schools, more and more, we are teaching students strategies to help them understand and answer questions that require them to annotate what they are reading, or write on the actual test materials. They are in for a rude awakening though if they get to their first test after graduating from high school and suddenly can't use any of their test-taking strategies anymore.
Finally, I wish to point out that New York State (as well as probably many others) is preparing to administer state-wide (if not National) final exams for various high schools courses in computer labs rather than classrooms with paper tests. All the problems I've described will just get amplified when you think of what the average high school (or middle school (or elementary school)) student is like (if you are over ~22 assume the average student is 50% as capable of demonstrating some form of intelligence as they were when you were in middle school). Computer classrooms, and computer based tests, provide a significant problem for me, and I'm ten times more capable of dealing with these types of problems than the average American student.
The transition to computer based tests, as well as online classes, should be done slowly and in recognition of the new challenges it will pose for students. Students at Universities perhaps will just deal with it, like I am doing. My future high school students however won't always be able to.
