Online College Course Forum

I'm at the end of a recruitment activity to recruit a new lecturer in my department. We had a good collection of people to interview, and I was fairly confident that I would find the right person for this job - lecturing in project management for technology activities.

I was delighted to see that the person who we offered the job to had undertaken a career change some six years ago, by studying online for his degree in computer science. He had been working in administration for a software house, and decided that he wanted to program. So he studied for some four years and completed his Bachelor's online program.

He did so well that his university encouraged him to do a Master's degree, which he has just finished. During this study period he worked in the software house, ending up as a team leader in a software engineering team.

Now he's working for us he wants to register for his PhD. I'm recommending that he waits for a year to give himself a break and to get on with learning about lecturing. Then I'll encourage him to go on with research and gain his PhD - online of course!

I'm in a rebellious mood, and I just don't want to do anything that I should do. That includes studying my online program, and even writing about online things in this blog.

So we'll get back to it all tomorrow, when I'm going to be really good and do all the things I haven't done today. And all the things I need to do tomorrow as well. But not today.

Although much of what I talk about in this blog is centered on online programs, in fact the biggest area of growth in online learning is that of blended learning. The idea of blended learning is that programs can be delivered in a variety of modes, dependent on the needs of the learner and the nature of each course in the program.

For instance, you could decide to study a program in information technology. The programming courses could be delivered either in the classroom or online. Each course is identical in content whatever the mode of delivery, but you choose what mode suits you best. However, if you choose to study networking, you need to attend and take part in workshops in the networking laboratory, complete with all the hardware that is necessary to this course. You therefore attend this course on campus.