OMDE601 Discussion thread

13.5 :-) Beverly to Thomas' intro
13.5.1 :-? Cynthia


15.5.7:-) Anthony

From my own personal experience as an undergraduate at UW-Stout, I learned that many of the foreign students who were my on-campus classmates chose to attend an American university so that they could improve their spoken English skills. However, with distance education, all of the dialogue occurs "online"; thereby hindering the opportunity for these foreign students to improve their English speaking skills.

So? Granted, I can see the benefit of doing so but what does that have to do with whether or not online is superior or inferior to offline? Being able to improve spoken language skills are generally not the goal of any course of instruction that doesn't deal directly with that skill.

Also, I do not believe that it's a matter of one winning over the other. As I postulated previously the ability to tailor learning to the student's preferred mode should be the primary focus. F2F for those who prefer that and online for those who prefer that.