I agree with some of HowlerKarma's points. Online learning is a gift for those of us who, by temperament, prefer to teach ourselves from, say, written materials and consider supplements (like a live lecture) as a nice-to-have, not a prerequisite to learning. The NYT piece focused on the failure of online learning for struggling students, which seems to be a sound point: I would think that struggling students by definition need engagement and a different set of learning strategies.