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Online Education A Review of the Literature
Online education has become a widely accepted alternative to learning in the classroom. Distance education has helped students across the country educate themselves in a world were technology rules and fast paced lifestyles are a part of life. The main advantages of distance learning are: Convenience eliminates travel to a traditional classroom and the freedom to learn at any time are some of the main reasons why so many people opt to learn online. However along with the many perks of an online education there are some disadvantages that follow. Some educators believe that although online education is changing the way that people learn and how many people …show more content…

Therefore it is important for the teacher to make sure that instructions for any assignment are clear and concise and that as much information can be given without giving all the answers. With a growing number of students entering online courses instruction quality becomes an important issue. An excerpt from the article reads:
The U.S. Department of Education, revealed that more than 54,000 online courses were being offered in 1998, with over 1.6 million student's enrolled (Lewis, et al., 1999). Moreover, Allen and Seaman (2003) in their study on online education reported that: (a) over 1.6 million students took at least one online course during the Fall of 2002, (b) over one-third of these students (578,000) took all of their courses online, (c) among all U.S. higher education students in Fall 2002, 11 percent took at least one online course, and (d) among those students at institutions where online courses were offered, 13 percent took at least one online course (p. 1) (www.westga.edu pg.3).

Instruction quality is very important considering that more students prefer or are trying online courses. According to the article some teachers are concerned with how their role is changed online and how to accommodate different technologies that they and the students have available. Instructors know have to double their work load because not only will there be questions regarding coursework but also

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