Is online learning effective? Do you get the same experience as in school? Will students be able to retain information given to them from the online teacher? Can you stay focused enough to actually want to login on your computer everyday for 175 days a school year? I think that online learning isn’t effective and doesn’t get the job done. 

Online schooling is very different from in school. When you are in school you have less distractions to get you off task and not do your work. Another problem is that when kids are in class they are more stimulated with hands-on projects and working with partners. Not being able to do hands-on activities is really bad for a learning environment. It is really hard to sit on a computer all day and write essays. Also when you are in school you are able to talk to people and see the teachers in person, when you are online if you are in a zoom meeting it is nearly impossible to get the help you need when you need it. Online learning is more work for less fun than in school and a lot of people don’t like that.

Another problem with online school is that it is really hard to retain the information that you are taught in your classes. According to American Institutes for Research and the University of Chicago Consortium on School they “randomly assigned students who had failed second semester Algebra I to either face-to-face or online credit recovery courses over the summer. Students’ credit-recovery success rates and algebra test scores were lower in the online setting. Students assigned to the online option also rated their class as more difficult than did their peers assigned to the face-to-face option.” These students didn’t know they were being tested. That means it is of significance because we don’t test online versus in school nearly enough. Overall the study is important and it shows that it is hard to retain the information given during online learning.

There are 175 days in a Wyoming school year. That is 175 days not counting weekends that you have to login to your computer and show up to all your online classes. In those 175 days are you going to be on task every day all day. The answer is no, I know I wouldn’t be. This is because most students aren’t focused on doing their work. The amount of time being spent on your computer in a school year is approximately 1166  hours and 40 minutes. That is a super long time that could be spent going to school and actually learning the required materials instead temporarily learning them. 

We asked this question earlier. Is online learning effective? We personally think that it isn’t. Anyone can tell you why, it is just too much time spent on a computer without the hard work it takes to get a good grade. Online school just doesn’t work no matter how hard you try to make it effective.