Online Learning For Dummies

Introduction

According to the Babson Survey Research Group, online enrollments had grown for 14 years consecutively. Nearly every college student accesses course documents and resources via online portals. One in three learners in higher education takes at least one fully online course. That’s a lot of online learning! And, considering that college is no longer limited to advantaged 18- to 22-year-olds, that means a lot of those online learners may be older and less familiar with the tools that come with the territory. That’s why we’ve written this book — for the many learners who find themselves in school, online, and confused.

And then there’s the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Overnight, brick-and-mortar schools had to shift to online options. College students were told to finish the term online. Though this kind of emergency instruction was not ideal for faculty or students, it brought about a sensitivity to how different online learning is from face-to-face models.

Furthermore, the ups and downs of the global economy have sent more learners back to school to retool or add credentials to their résumé. However, balancing work, family, and civic commitments with school is an arduous task at best. Online options allow learners to address their professional development needs at a time, and in a manner, that may be more flexible with their lifestyles. This may be part of the reason that online enrollments have mushroomed over the past few years.

Fifteen years ago when we tried to ...