Online Courses

When I was in high school I took several online classes. One class in particular was through Brigham Young University. I didn’t enjoy the class because there was no interaction between the teachers and students, not to mention the class was unbelievably harder than actually going to a class and listening to a teacher lecture. Last semester I was taking an Operations Management course and the class had roughly 15 people trying to take the course. Some elected to take the class online with another professor, thus accommodating this surplus of students.

I have yet to take a fully online course at the University of New Mexico, but the classes that I have taken online were difficult and weren’t set up well to interact with other students or professors. Has anyone had a good experience with online courses? I am currently taking a hybrid online course, which is part online and part in the classroom. I have found this course to be quite enjoyable, because I have interaction with students and the professor in the classroom and online. We have discussions every week about different topics. I think it forces the students to get to know one another, which doesn’t always happen in a regular classroom.

Personally, I think that online classes do allow for easier scheduling. Students can get on at anytime and work on their assignments when it is convenient for them. According to one article, based on the Las Alamos UNM campus, one professor had this to say about online classes, “It’s a great resource for people who are working or who live far way from a college campus…They can ‘attend class’ at any time, from anywhere.” http://www.la.unm.edu/PR/C&M%20Website/Fall%20Update%20stories%20only.pdf Also, this article mentions that the classes are live. I guess there is more interaction with students and professors now that the technology has progressed.

Here is a link to all the different classes that are offered online at UNM. There are over 100 different classes to choose from. There are English classes, business classes, teaching classes, and much, much more. http://hsc.unm.edu/som/radiology/RadSciences/Spring2010online.pdf

Overall, I am a little hesitant on taking another fully online course, however, I do realize that technology has changed. Online courses are more interactive now than they were four years ago. I have enjoyed the hybrid online course that I am currently taking, which I am sure is very similar to a fully online class.

I am curious what other people think of online classes. Are they more work than regular classes that you attend on campus? Are they harder? Do you get interaction with other students and professors?

The Employment Dilemma

In times of economic uncertainty, such as these, almost everyone faces the fear of being affected by the stooping economy. College students are not exempt from this fear, because they are not unaffected. The majority of college students are employed at least part time while they are enrolled in school. These working students are often not yet equipped with the experience that is required to be eligible for a job in the field they are studying. So, some students work in food service and some work in entry level office positions with no possibility of promotion. In a harsh economic environment like this one, it can be assumed that students are just as worried as people who are solely in the workforce about their ability to maintain employment.

The life of a college student is a stressful one, with classes, homework, social pressures, and on top of all of that holding down a job. Why are so many students employed while they are earning a degree? Well, tuition costs, even for in-state tuition, are not just a drop in the bucket. Not only is tuition costly, but textbooks are becoming exorbitantly priced and scantily bought back from students. Basically, most students have to be employed just so that they can succeed in school and earn that sought-after degree.

The issue is this: in such an unsteady economy, students will be getting the short end of the stick in the job market. College students who are looking for work are most likely having a hard time finding a job because so many people are not hiring while money is tight. Not only are companies not looking for workers, but if they happen to hire someone it will most likely be someone with previous work experience in their area of expertise. Students who are currently employed may be losing jobs because they are not the most valuable workers in a company. They do not have a degree yet, and their work experience does not mean anything because they most likely have been working in a dead-end job.

This issue has hit close to home for me. As a student at the University of New Mexico, I have held down a part time position as a receptionist. I have maintained this job for the entirety of my college career. But, the company recently fell on hard times and some employees were laid off, including me. At the bottom of the company food chain, with no degree and no valuable work experience they had to let me go. Another college student who worked there was also laid off. So I ask you, how is a college student supposed to make ends meet in this economy?

If you are a college student now, are you worried about keeping your job? Are you worried about finding a job after earning your degree? Maybe you are someone who is not attending college but has ideas about the employment of college students. Let me know what you think, I appreciate any feedback.

Technology, the silent killer.

Khaki pants, and a slightly loose fitting, but professionally and expertly tucked-in dress shirt. The professor walks in, slowly, to a crowd of eager students chatting away to each other in the precious few moments before class begins. As he stands at the podium, the chattering stops, and the hum of the students is replaced momentarily by the insistent clicking of ballpoint pens, the flurry of notebook paper, and the occasional pressing down of the red button initiating the start of a virgin voice recorder tape.

This image, however, has found an unsuitable but more technologically progressive replacement. As the professor walks in, the number of students innocently chatting is outnumbered by those opting for virtual communication: shut out from the actual, physical people around them in lieu of those reached via text, email, or instant messenger. The professor walking in is a mere act, nothing suggesting any necessity of stopping the five facebook chats they have going on.

Computers replaced notebooks, ipods replaced paying attention, cell phones replaced conversation, and technology replaced the sacredness of human interaction at large.

The pandemic is nothing short of a global phenomena, grasping the University of New Mexico tight in its mechanical, suffocating hands en route to a global takeover. Rather than engaging in a first-hand experience in which the professor explains material, some of them, at certain points, choose rather to redirect your experience, thus altering the course of your education. “And then...well, actually, you can just read about it on the article I put up on ereserves.” What, exactly, is to be said about this redirecting of our thoughts, ideas, and education? No longer does it seem that the logical approach to having a question answered is to directly approach the teacher. Now, rather, there are multiple steps you not only can, but should take, before daring to approach the ever busy college professor.

Step one: check the syllabus

Step two: check e-reserves for any explanatory documents

Step three: email the TA

Step four: email the other TA

Step five: email the professor

In no way is this gradual (but certainly noticeable and significant) shift in student/professor interaction and quality of education subject to the decisions of the professor him/herself. Professors, like us, are victims struggling to overcome the limitations and social changes technology has imparted onto us.

Take your basic, 100-level, generally popular university course; such as Psychology 105, among many others. There you are, sitting in class, laptop open with 10+ sites open on the screen. There you are, surrounded with a few friends, and eight hundred others. Your name will not be learned, nor will you ever get anything less than a hazy, distorted view of your professor. He will always be a blur off in the distance, his voice echoing poorly with the slight time lapse through the speakers. It’s Auschwitz. You are a number, not a person. You must complete your duties, submit your online quizzes in a timely manner, or suffer the consequences.

But what exactly are the repercussions, in terms of our UNM community, of a technological makeover? The danger lies within the disconnect between student and teacher ultimately catalyzing a disconnect between student and education. Most recently, our ability to take quizzes and tests online, rather than in the classroom, further advances the disconnect between student and education by removing the educational setting. For example, the quiz that may be taken at our leisure, on our couch with this week's American Idol blaring incessantly from the speakers, may by association of the environment impart to us the notion that the information we are receiving from the quiz is not important, or that the information simply doesn't matter.

Iain Thomson, associate professor here at the University of New Mexico, warns heavily of the implications and dangers of the technologization of the university. In his book, Heidegger on Ontotheology: The Politics of Education, Thomson notes that students are no longer students of knowledge, but rather tools for increased profit for university administration and their ultimate gain. Rather than cultivating knowledge as meaningful in and of itself, it has morphed into a tool whose goal is to ultimately give students a piece of paper (the sought after degree) so that they can make more money in the “real world.”

Professors are not at fault, but are victims to this technological onslaught and business-like mentality that the public university system at large has been forced through economic factors to adopt. While we may not be able to control technology, we can control the way it attempts to control us. For I believe that it is not technology itself that is intrinsically bad, but the way that we use it. Rather than relying on it to divulge us from personal connections (why ask your teacher a question in class and risk getting embarrassed when you can just send him a completely disconnected email?) we must see it as a mere part of our lives, not an all-encompassing facet. We must slow down, and remember that although we might just be student # 532 in a classroom, that does not mean that we should not remind ourselves that our work does matter, and the knowledge we gain is beautiful, useful, and valuable in and of itself. We must use technology, and not be used by it. Unless we want the UNM bookstore to dissolve and receive a campus-wide email announcing that every textbook shall now be downloaded via Kindle.

Old School

Due to the current state of our unstable economy, it is important now, more than ever, to consider the education and lack of educational impact that current institutes are making for students around the world. Students are the key to the future: they are tomorrow’s leaders. The students of today will soon be solving the nations crisis’ based on the information they have or have not obtained in school. Unfortunately, it seems like much of a student’s average day is wasted in school because of the lack of appropriate substance in educational systems. In order to determine what the problem is in our educational systems, it must be broken down one school at a time.

UNM is a traditional school that admits thousands of students yearly. The core courses that freshmen are required to complete are mostly large lecture-style classes. These classes generally require students to sit in a large classroom two or three times a week to listen to lectures given by their professors. The students are then given multiple tests throughout the semester to determine how well they have retained this information.

This method of teaching is incredibly outdated and overrated. Instead of actually gaining a lasting impression of the information they are supposed to retain, students cram four weeks worth of class notes into a study session the day before the test, pour it all out onto the exam, and leave it there. In my experience, the only times I remember information is when I am very interested in the subject at hand, even when I know that the other information is equally important.

Students are more likely to be actively learning in an environment where there is hands on experience. If there was a way for students to learn processes in an environment that was more like an internship where they could be involved in a professional‘s workspace and possibly do some of the work, students would not only be learning useful terminology, objectives, and processes, but they would also be filling their social needs at the same time. Learning would no longer be busy work with extra filler, but it would be a useful experience that could help professionals with their work at the same time. Knowledge would be easier gain and retain, and students would have a clearer idea of what field they would like to join once they graduate.

Currently in UNM, a select few professors in the Business and in the Communication and Journalism departments are using innovative learning structures that are more effective in helping students become more aware and more ready to become a part of the professional world. These professors break their classes up into groups and give students the opportunity learn the course content through creating mock agencies. There are also classes that are offered online, which is a big step in the right direction as well because of the obvious connection between technology and the future of humanity.

When discussing ideas of this nature, it is certain that the argument that Universities and educational institutes have limited manpower, time and space. However, there is a revolutionary charter school (http://www.sslc-nm.com) in the Albuquerque area that provides weekly community based activities where their middle school students are put in a bus and go around to various locations to apply their knowledge. This is the only charter school that has made annual yearly progress over the past few years, and this school also generally has better exam scores than most schools in the APS system. UNM and other educational institutes should examine this type of learning and apply it accordingly. Where there is a will to make things better, there is a way.

If you have any opinions on this article, whether you agree or disagree or would simply like to add ideas, please feel free to comment below. Thanks!

Coming Soon!

Starting this week, this blog will begin to share perspectives from UNM students (all enrolled in a section of English 320) on various subjects related to life at the University of New Mexico. Stay tuned!