The available technology is good enough to level the field.
It is?
Do you have evidence? (Not trying to be confrontational about it-- I'm just extremely skeptical about this conclusion in light of different learning styles and needs.)
I was not clear - my point was not to generalise in the sense 'all distance courses are as good as in-person courses for everybody' - which would be as pointless as saying 'all in-person courses are as good for everybody'.
I actually wanted to say 2 things:
1) I am just very glad that there is an alternative to in-person courses - basically, the worst thing is to have no choice. I see a lot of great distance course offerings which are not available locally (in most parts of the world - or US).
2) We need to compare apples to apples. That is, compare
a) the benefits to those students physically present in the the 'Classical Mechanics' class of Prof. Levin and
b) to students accessing the same course online.
Of course, comparing a) to b), there are obvious drawbacks:
- absence of live interaction with peers
- absence of instructor - yes, instructor needs to be provided (which may be done in a hybrid class - or by a parent), etc.
Now, add to this
c) students who have access only to local courses - which may be of varying quality, and
d) what if there is no access to an even remotely appropriate science course locally? - read 'a student in early years of school who is taught something like tally marks at school'.
Having b) + some additional support is much better than getting stuck with c) or d).
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When I say 'the available technology is good enough to level the field' I mean precisely this:
'presently available technology allows to make online course experience identical to that of in-person course, with few exceptions like not being able to physically touch the person sitting next to you'. It does NOT mean that every online course provides this, only that the the technology supports this.
AOPS online classes is actually is a good example; in particular, there are live instructors, the classes are live, interactive, instructors are responsive outside the class times. They do not have interactive video - only online chat - but my point is that they COULD add interactive video, if they wanted too (there are plenty providers for that now).
