Thanks for your comment Julie,

Knowing some tricks to get on the Internet – like the fact that the connection speed is faster is you connect to the network through a cable than it is over WiFi – really can make a difference (like not having any 8:00 AM classes). One thing you made me think of from your comment is the changing nature of social interaction and how that will impact college campuses. Kids are spending much less time outside together than they used to because they are inside on their devices interacting on social media. I wonder when a critical mass of students who are residents on a college campus will opt to only take online courses for the same reasons?

I also remember going to the library and having to look up references, scan the pages or write the notes down, write the paper on Windows ’95, and then save it to a floppy disk to submit. We did not have the internet until I was in the 7th grade and even then, I basically blew up my parents’ computer with AIM and still had to go to the library all through high school to write papers and such (funnily enough, my classmates and I recently had a good laugh about this).

Anyways, I enjoyed your comments on the infrastructure universities need in order to meet the demands of the students. I remember my freshman year of college, waiting up at 6 AM to register for classes and the internet literally BROKE because it did not have the capacity to handle all of the students trying o accomplish the same task simultaneously. This was about a year or so after they started offering campus-wide WiFi and the infrastructure simply wasn’t caught up. Since then they have made significant changes to their structure.

With the growing realm of online education, it is interesting to think if it is even possible to have the kind of infrastructure to sustain this growth or if we need to look at how to invest and improve upon the technology we have.

Thanks for your comment! I’ve seen research that shows taking notes by hand helps retention when compared to taking notes on the computer. While that’s generally true based on the research methodology, I wonder if there is a difference based on age, technology familiarity, or even the software you use for notetaking?

I certainly didn’t want to diminish the experience of students who don’t take online classes. Depending on how the online course is facilitated it can be very limited and/or ineffective. I think the most important thing about the technological advancements we’ve made is that it has made knowledge and education more attainable to a larger number of people. That matters; however, if you prefer in-person classes with textbooks – do you if you can.

I feel like there might also be a difference in the classes that are undergrad versus graduate as a whole than just as them being an online class versus a face-to-face class. For example, I have in general enjoyed my graduate classes significantly more because they are focused towards my field of study as opposed to some undergrad classes where I was just there because I needed the credits. I have never taken a true online class (except where the professor was occasionally snowed in) so maybe I just do not know what it is like. I enjoy what Professor Gannon has to say though about having to engage students in a new way. Makes me think about what is the best way to reach students in an online setting – is watching a lecture and taking a short quiz that is probably pretty easy to cheat on really the best way to engage students in an online setting?