Homework discussion: learning online

Hi everyone,

Let's start an online discussion about the internet and the future of learning.

Do you think there's a possibility that people will just learn online in the future and not in the classroom?
How would you feel about doing an English course entirely through the internet? If you were offered that opportunity, would you accept it?
What advantages might the internet have over the classroom as a learning environment?
What is your attitude towards the internet?
How much time do you spend online each day?
How do you currently use the internet in your social life? Talking to friends? Online games? Reading the news? Watching tv/movies?
How can the internet be used as a tool for learning English and preparing to study at an English university?
Are there any websites that you recommend?

Let's consider some of these questions together and share our thoughts by posting them on this forum

Andrew

There is no denying that online learning has some advantages ,the most important one is convenient .wherever you are ,only if you have a computer ,you can attend the English course immediately .but the drawback of it is also obviously , you can’t feel the atmosphere of learning as good as you study in the classroom .you are easy to wandering ,can’t concentrate on study. So I don’t agree that the online study will instead of the traditional study.
But the online study can be a helpful way to improve our study ability ,before or after class ,we can use internet to do some work ,such as to prepare or review the class to make sure you are familiar with the topic of class or you under the class very well. As to me ,I spend about 3 hours on surfer the internet almost everyday , reading the news ,chatting with my friend, listening to the music ,do my homework and so on.
I think in the university, internet will act an important role in my study. Information on internet is very rich. We need to learn how to use the internet adequately to make our daily study easier.

As we all see, the technique of Internet has developed a lot during the past few decades. We can do many things like shopping, buying food and even doing business on the Internet. So, learning online may be a good for people.
Most of us spend a lot of time going to school worrying about the weather and the traffic. But if we study online we will no longer have these worries. No matter how bad the weather is we can still study.
What’s more, the Internet can remember all the things. So we do not need to worry about our study if we are absent because of illness.
As for teenager, Internet is more welcomed than going to school. We may be more interested in learning if we can no more sit in our seat staring at teachers.
If this comes true, what we need is more self control. All in all, it is acceptable.

Currently, whether to do an English course entirely through the internet has sparked a heated discussion. I quite disagree with learning online. Because some online courses often do not have the guidance of teachers, it is entirely depends on students’ self-learning. And without the proper guidance of teachers, students may lose the points and get confused. The information on the internet is multifarious; it is difficult to ensure that students are not affect by the adverse resources.

The role played by lectures offered by teachers at school, which can definitely bring us comprehensive and systematic knowledge but meanwhile may be less flexible, has consented by many people.

From my personal perspective, adopting the traditional way of learning can make us master information of particular field with ease and efficiency and foster the learning techniques, which will possibly impose a positive impact on the comprehensive development of the students. And it is thanks to the proper guidance of teachers that we can avoid making mistakes that would otherwise be inevitable.

Furthermore, if we study at school, we would probably be exposed to people coming from different social background and thus making many new friends.
Yet, the mode of studying on campus makes us unable to adjust the schedule according to our specific situation.
In this respect, studying on the internet can be adjusted to satisfy the specific requirement of the student.

Although learning online is of a certain benefit, studying at school’s advantages are more appealing to me. I, therefore tend to the latter.

The Internet technology is developing in an astonishing speed so that there are a large number of people who claim that students won’t need to attend a class in person to learn something because they can acquire knowledge online. I have to say it is very likely that learning online would be a commonplace in the future because learning through the Internet is much more convenient and won’ t be restricted by time and places. But in my point of view, learning in a class room is a better way for me. As learning in a class would provide me more chances to communicate to the teacher, and I can have a clearer comprehension from teachers’ facial expressions and stresses by attending a class in person. So I may not accept it if I were provided such an opportunity.

Actually, Internet has become an indispensable part of my life. I spend more than 3 hours surfing the Internet everyday. I use it for watching movies, get in touch with friends and so forth. Internet is a practical tool for my English study since I can find some detailed information of a word or an article. And I can also learn more by visiting useful websites like ‘the onion’, a website which tells me lots of interesting news.
The onion (http://www.theonion.com/)

In the modern world, the internet has become part and parcel of our daily life. I think it is more than a tool.
In view of the development of technology in nowadays, it seems like we need not study in a classroom any more. However, it may be better in reality when we learn a language, because at that time, we need more talking, writing and changing our mind with others. Therefore, I prefer to learn English in a classroom.
But as a learning environment, the internet provides us more information than a classroom, and we can know the latest news by it. There is no doubt that learning something by internet is more convenient .however, this kind of convenient also brings bad effects on somebody. The temptation to cheating is greater than ever before.
I always spend 1 or 2 hours online, and I just read some news or receive some Emails. The reason is that spending too time online will bad for my eyes, I always feel tired if I surfing excess 3 hours.
So you can use internet when you want to inquire something or just for fun. It is not good to over dependent on internet, and it will be harmful for your autonomic learning ability.

I use the internet 3 hours for studying almost every day. Since my childhood I have got information from the internet. Then I use MSN talking to my friends. The internet makes our life convenience and relaxing. Now the internet is useful in everyday life. It changes our life in many ways. We can get information without going out. This way is efficient and time-saving. And it can make impossible possible. We can deal with many things by the internet. And there is no denying that the internet is now used a lot in education. Abundant materials and resources are available. And it can provide more choices. But the internet still has many disadvantages. I do not believe that the internet can replace the classroom. Maybe, with the development of the internet, we can learn online. But I do not accept it and I still maintain learning courses through the internet is not a good way. The reason is I am aware that we need teacher teach us face by face. Through that way, we can learn courses,especially learning English, quickly. And If we use the internet too long, we will be indulged in a virtual world. And the eyesight is another problem. In a word, the internet is a good tool for us, if we are not addicted to it.

I want to express some personal views about network learning. Firstly, I want to say that the network resource is rich, share resources become a reality.Network environment has large data, multimedia resource materials, teaching softwares such as learning resources, forming a highly integrated repository. These learning resources for everybody is open. On the one hand, these resources may for the general students and teachers both use, without any limitation, and on the other hand, all teachers and students can above their own points of view, will own resources to join the network resource repositories for other teachers to share.
Secondly,Individualized learning become possible. Under the network environment, studying will be maximally realize the learners autonomy, flexibility and satisfy personalized requirements, make learners truly, positive initiative geological earth sciences.
Thirdly,it can realize the interactive cooperation study.Between students' interpersonal conversation did not decrease, contrary, expand the scope of the communication. Online learning, for the students' communication coordination provides a more capacious platform.
Above all,I think under the network environment can reflect life is learning more study, work that learning new learning concept.

Hi~

We should learning online. There are some points I want to say. AS we know. It’s convenient that we can get lots of information from Internet. Also it is quickly and exact than book. May be always people against learning online because they think as we find our value information also there are some bad information. Almost every body has a good curiosity. But not most people will click the bad information. If we can be very good control ourselves. The bad information will far from us. So we will successful if we can have a good spiritual power no matter what we want do.

Dean

As time goes on, technology become more and more advanced and significant increasingly, so learning online is widespread.
In my opinion, learning online is modern and useful way. First of all, learning online can provide us a large amount of information and material by internet. Moreover, it also is a fast, direct and convenient way to learn more about knowledge. Furthermore, learning online can let us communicate with others and share some ideas commonly in forum. To some extend, learning online has so many effective advantage for learners who use internet.
On contrary, sometimes learning online may cause different not good results. For example, on the one hand, many forums can bring mistake information or useless information to students. On the other hand, many lazy students often copy article and view point from others in forum, as you know, it is a kind of forbidden cheat. Another reason is someone do not know how to use internet, so sometimes it is complex and uneasy for people.
In a word, learning online has advantage and disadvantage, different people have display different opinion.

Dear ANDREW:
In my opinion, studying on line have two sides, we should treat this phenomenon exactly. I feel studying on line can let us learn more knowledge than studying in class. Studying on line can give us more communication opportunity with others; we can improve our communication ability. If you feel tired during your studying, you can find some interesting things to watch. But, studying on line also has some negative effection. If you don’t have self-control ability, you will lose your way. For example, you may play some computer games, watch films, and chat with QQ. So I think that if you have self-control ability, studying on line will give you many benefits, and let your grade improve.

class1 JACK

There are some really thoughtful and interesting points being made here. Keep it up I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Lu Siyu recommended a news website (the onion) and I'd like to share a couple of links to British news sites for those of you who like following the news online.

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The Times: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/

BBC News: www.bbc.co.uk/news

'News Now' is a portal where you can choose what news topics your interested in and it will give you links to the latest news on those topics from around the web.

http://www.newsnow.co.uk

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I'm off to bed now See you in class tomorrow morning.

Andrew

There is no avoiding the fact that the internet plays an increasingly important role in our daily life. But I don’t agree with the view that people will just learn online in the future and not in the classroom. It is true that if we learn online we can get more information to widen our vision and get the news promptly. But studying in the classroom is beneficial to us not only academically but also psychologically. So I think learn in the classroom is also very important.

I like doing an English course through the internet but not entirely. As an international language English has been used widely on the wed side. So we can get more knowledge on the internet than in books or newspapers. If I have a chance to do it, I will accept it.

Using the internet, we can meet our classmates wherever we are. We would have more chance to community with our friends and teachers.

I spend about 3-4hours online. Some times I talk with my friends. We talk about our life, study and the different people we meet. I also watch movies on the internet. I like old movies so I can’t go to cinema to watch them.

Internet for me as a good friend. I can find almost anything from the Internet. For example, if you don’t know some thing you can “Baidu” or “Google” on the internet lot of information will be appearance.
I often use the internet look for information keep touch with friends and relaxing. I have some very interesting webs recommend you. http://www.tiexue.net/ and a community you can find your classmates http://www.renren.com/ .
I think we should study on the internet, because it’s very convenience for us. But sometimes it’s too convenience make me become lazy and lose some abilities. So I can’t rely on it.

In modern world, Internet plays an important part in our life. It's so convenience to do a lot of things. Internet enrich our life and expand our vision, but it's also has some disadvantage, nothing is perfect.
In my opinion, I support to study on line. It's a good and original way to study. To compare with the environment in school, students will have more interets to study. Also, we don't have to take a bus or taxi, that can cost less than before. By surfing the Internet, we can communicate with our friends about some difficulties, disscuss some academic questions, find some important information and so on. Some parents are afarid of their children playing games and do something harmful, but I think if a child is good whatever ways he chooses to study, he will use the choice wonderful.
All in all, the Internet is important and beneficial. The technology and science has developed, why don't we use the super achievement?