Online Courses vs. Traditional Courses

張貼日期：Mar 29, 2018 2:59:51 PM

Iris Lin

With the daily use of the Internet, online courses have been increasingly popular. Nowadays, online courses are almost as important as traditional courses, and even become the main way of learning for some people. As a student who has studied in both ways, I prefer online courses for their flexibility, convenience and being distance courses.

First of all, online courses are more flexible than traditional courses. Unlike traditional courses, which need fixed classrooms and class-time, online courses are accessible whenever and wherever we are available to participate. The traditional course requires us to go to the prescribed classroom at the stipulated time, while the online course breaks the limits of time and space. Therefore, I can learn a lesson about English phonetics even on my way to meet my friends. I am also free to choose where I want to attend the course. It is permissible for me to complete a psychology course on my couch, not worrying being frowned up for my casual manners or unkempt dress.

Moreover, the flexibility of the online course makes it convenient for students to make personalized arrangements on the learning schedule in order to learn better. In the traditional course, we can only follow the teachers’ steps. If the teacher lectures fast, we may not keep up. The progress of the course is entirely in the hands of the teacher. Students’ ability of comprehension and the degree of difficulty of the course are not the same, but the traditional course is fixed and unified in instruction. The teacher will not stop or repeat the whole course just because a certain student does not understand it. The online course, however, makes our arrangement flexible towards our own steps. For example, if I am not sure about the pronunciation of a phonetic symbol in the course of English phonetics, I can pause the video, replay it and practice the sound repeatedly to master this pronunciation skill thoroughly. And in an online course, it is more convenient for us to take notes, since we can pause at any time when it is necessary to take down what is important.

In addition, compared with traditional courses, online courses have a more attractive feature as being distance courses, which means we have a wider range of choices with respect to teachers and lessons without geographical limitations. In the traditional education, because of the actual teaching conditions, the teaching resources of many remote areas are seriously deficient. In some areas there are even no teachers, which restricts the development of local education. The advantage of network education is that every student in any region can learn from the courses taught by the famous teachers through the Internet.

The online course has not only attracted me with its flexibility, but also enabled me to learn more, not being limited by geography and time. Besides, online courses provide me with more opportunities for review and practice. Therefore, though the traditional course is the mainstream, I am more favorable to the online course.