Learning in the virtual classroom

Unlike most online education sites which insist upon your entering your email and providing all kinds of personal information before allowing you access (after which you will probably receive a stream of spam forever), we are simply interested in providing online education resources. You will not be asked to provide an email and every piece of information we have is freely available.

Whether working toward a degree, finishing a highschool diploma, or simply pursuing personal development, online study can be, for certain people, a very reasonable alternative. It can also be an utter disaster. Many online educational institutions do very little beyond subjecting student work to a very mechanical evaluation process and awarding (or denying) grades -- leaving all of the work (not to mention the bill) to the student. (See studying for degrees online.)

Online class taking is often done best with friends. A few people doing online study collaboratively can overcome all of the inherent disadvantages of the medium.

Fortunately, given the current state of online technology, it is quite easy to sample online fare, learning anything and everything, without paying a cent. Only when one is seeking official credit does tuition become a factor. Most major universities make extensive resources available to the public, including complete online courses, debates and lectures and this is often all that one ever gets with an expensive online degree program, meaningful intereaction being close to non-existent in many cases. It is therefore only to have a degree conferred that one must pay for education.