Disadvantages Of Online Learning

Online Learning or (eLearning) has been a staple of higher education for a while now. Since the rise of the Internet, Universities have all been able, in various ways, to utilize the newfound technology to help make learning more accessible to students as well as management for faculty (Picciano, 2016). Since many courses and programs (degrees) are offered via Course Management Systems (CMS) or Learning Management Systems (LMS) as opposed to the traditional classroom approach, even registration is done through some type of system that connects with the LMS. Higher education has reached a point where interacting with an LMS like Blackboard, or Canvas is even common in regular “in person classes”. For example, faculty will often request assignments, …show more content…
Daphne Koller, a speaker at TED talked about how this phenomenon has its perks but also its drawbacks. Throughout her talk she emphasized the good side of how online education brought higher learning from a local audience to a global audience that promoted different types of thought and experiences, as well as revolution and learning for the system of online education itself (Koller, 2012). Though these systems bring new innovative and paradigm changing mechanics to the area of higher education, and all forms of education, there’s still a lot that needs to be worked on for the general …show more content…
While many popular systems like Blackboard invest, and strive to be accessible to groups learners or students who are Blind and/or Visually Impaired (Blackboard, n.d.). In many practical settings, it appears this may not be the case. Many students seem to find issues with courses, assignments, discussions, or even quizzes, tests, and much more that seem less than accessible for these groups of students (Bond, 2016). Students who are already faced with these problems in an academic setting are also faced with other issues in life. Academic life is very stressful, but adding on other stressors such as having to navigate to a classroom in an unknown area, navigating to an online document required for a course that hasn’t been optimized, or taking a test where the information isn’t accessible, and many other things are all events in which the Blind and Visually Impaired face on a day to day basis. In an environment of higher education there are departments like a Disability Support Services or Disability Resource Center that can help advocate and facilitate a student with accommodations and support to help them through their academic endeavors, but this is not always enough. A Disability Support Service department can only go so far as the limitations of the staff, students, software,