From Deseret News archives:
Virtual learning Online classes' popularity surges among Utah students
Punctuality is a thing of the past and pajamas in class are no longer taboo with the increasing popularity of virtual classrooms.
"It does help students balance their time schedule between work and school, it allows students to take that one extra course they might not be able to fit in their schedule and it decreases the time it takes to finish a degree," said Chuck Wight, assistant vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah.
The classes, which cost the same as standard tuition, are no different than a regular classroom, Wight said. Students still interact with one another via e-mail or chat groups, and the same material is covered.
The students, however, are able to set their own schedules for reading lectures, taking quizzes and doing their work, he said.
"It's accessible right off the bat. You're not schedule-driven," U. psychology professor Tom Malloy said. "Students want to be able to juggle other classes, have jobs and family time. The flexibility of scheduling online courses is a major advantage, students say over and over."
But the online class can offer learning tools traditional classrooms lack, Malloy added. In a statistics class he designed, students are able to navigate through a virtual reality and must discover the laws of the fictional universe that have been preset by the professor.
"You can't really do that with just a textbook or even a lecture. The students get to be actual scientists attempting to discover the nature of the reality," he said.
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