Well my friend Dan and I have been talking a lot about the challenge of bringing students in to higher education environments and keeping up with the technologies that they are using in every other aspect of their lives. The good news in the past decade or so has been that higher education seems to have gotten the message that courses MUST be offered online. The bad news is that higher education seems to have gotten the message that courses MUST be offered online!

What do I mean by that? Well, ask anyone who has taken an online course or knows someone who has. The vast majority of courses offered online are (at best) copied and pasted from the classroom, without a good critical and creative look at not only how to make learning work in this environment, but how to leverage the virtual environment to actually make these courses better that those offered only in class.

So what do you think? Can online courses be as good as classroom courses? Can students be as engaged? Can instructors be as engaging? Can content come to life the way it does in the best classroom settings? Can groups/teams interact like they do in the breakout sessions in classroom settings?

I would love to hear from you if you have an opinion on this -- even better, share a story (horror story or best practice --your choice).

Kathy (Cat) Milhauser

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