Online education is booming according to longtime
online higher education pioneer, Dr. Fred DiUlus. As the founder and CEO of online university builder, Global Academy Online, he has witnessed first-hand the exponential growth of the online education
industry. Traditional educators are just now beginning to seriously pull back the layers of opportunity that exist within
the virtual world for today's technologically savvy students.
Many traditionalists have complained over the
years about what they perceive as the inadequacy of virtual education. They believe that somehow online education would destroy
rigor and academic accomplishment if universities even dared to adopt online protocols in a major way. The father of modern
management, the late Peter Drucker, predicted that schools as we know them will cease to exist in a generation replaced
by their virtual counterparts.
Skeptics in higher education have long questioned Drucker's ominous prediction.
Global Academy Online's own statistical research over the past eight years appears to bear out Drucker's forecast
contrary to what others in the field think and perhaps sooner than even Drucker expected. In 2002, the Academy began collecting
statistical data from students attending traditional colleges and universities. The results of the eight-year survey are so
startling that it now appears proof positive of the inevitability of Drucker's prophecy.
The Academy asked
students three simple questions. Did they believe online education was as good as traditional education? 24% say yes. Did
they believe online education was better than traditional education? 67% say yes. And, did they believe online education was
worse than traditional education? Just 8% say yes. The margin of error is plus or minus 5%.
DiUlus points out
the statistics have remained relatively steadfast year in and year out. The Academy survey student satisfaction of 91% approval
has not varied much except to show an increasing trend towards a belief that online education is in fact 'better'.
The results, DiUlus says, are being influenced by the increasing use in online classes of social networking tools such as
Facebook, Twitter and others.
And, he adds "Don't be surprised if,
in the not to distant future, you walk into a room and see someone watching a holographic image of his or her professor giving
today's latest lecture on a table top."
XXXX
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
