on line classes

In the last 5 years online universities have exploded in popularity. This leaves us with many questions to ask ourselves. Like how will online learning will replace traditional school buildings? How is this changing educational programs? Will all colleges and universities be compelled to offer classes online? Should all students be required to participate in online learning? Will online students be distinct and different from the students who pursue traditional classroom learning? These questions show how education programs are changing and the need for students to keep up with the changes.

Online learning is growing at an exponential rate and allowing students the flexibility never offered before. I do not believe that the traditional classes will ever be fully replaced by online classes. There will always be a need for a traditional learning environment for advanced hands on labs and classes where high instructor involvement is required. Classes will and are becoming a mix of both depending on the students needs working hand in hand to complement each other. Many companies and now having their employees complete their annual safety, Equal Opportunity and Policy reviews online. The military now has computer based training that allows members to complete their training anywhere in the world at the member’s convenience.

These classes require students to be self starters, motivated and very organized. Students must log in and to complete assignments, competed and respond to other students work and blogs while completing tests in the required time. Online students are forced to become more interactive than traditional students where they can choose to be an inactive member of the class and get lost in a class of 40 to 60 students. For high school graduates this change can to very overwhelming for procrastinators and students that needed constant reminders on due dates for assignments. This is however a very positive changes because the excuse of not having basic computer skills is now a requirement in all universities and most employers today.

I believe all universities will offer some form of online class in the next 5 years. Students must now use their computers to check their grades, register for classes and complete assignments. This is the next logical step in Universities moving towards the future. All students are already required to use a computer in one way or the other for classes now. While the amount of online classes required may be only required for introductory and orientation classes all students will use them.

Currently some students in some professions many be looked at more closely for having an online degree more and more people are getting them and their acceptance will continue to grow. While there will be some online schools that have a better reputation than others university accreditations will help students choose better schools while reassuring employers the quality of the graduates they put out.

The future is very bright for online students and universities in the next few years. If online schools continue to produce high quality graduates and offer students flexible and interactive programs more and more people will choose them. Will they ever replace traditional schools? I doubt it in my life time programs like nursing and architecture need a hands on approach that online classes are able to offer. Students will get all or some of their elective classes online but not all in the near future. Either way it will be very interesting to see how schools change from State Colleges to Ivy League Schools.

Food

America is the only country in the world where everything is someone else’s fault and then our government spends millions fixing problems due to lack of personal accountability. A prime example of this is the question should the government pass laws to regulate the types of food fast food restaurants serve? Right now a country with a record high national debt, poor public health care and third world public education system is spending millions of US tax payer’s dollars. The real question should be whatever happened to personal accountability?
Almost every national chain fast food restaurant now has healthy meal options on their menu. Subway has established themselves as a healthy alternative to normal fast food options but the consumer must choose that option. You can still get a Philly cheese steak sandwich with chips, cookies and a large Mello Yellow. That has three days worth of fat grams in one sitting. If I choose to eat one sandwich over another that is my choice and I must live with my choices. This goes for everything else in life it’s my personal responsibility. Should the government limit all vehicles so that they can only do 70 mph? You can kill a lot more people with a car than with an extra value meal at Burger King.
I’ve also had a Blooming Onion and Outback steak house with its 500% of your daily recommended fat allowance and loved it! They have salads on many other healthy choices on their menu but about once every other year that’s what I want. No one forces me to eat it and the restaurant is honest about how fatting it is but I still eat it. Our government has way bigger issues they need to deal with than regulating food. If they enacted sweeping change to the food industry for the good of their people what’s next my home. If I can’t get what I want a restaurant but can have whatever I want at home what to do these laws really do?
This seems like a very simple problem to address. If you make poor food choices on a consistent basis then you will be fat. You need to take personal responsible responsibility for your actions. If you kids are fat and they only eat junk and are inactive that is the parents fault and they need to take responsibility for that and quite pointing fingers.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a very important time of year for my family. It is a time for family to get together and really give "thanks" for what we have. We spend the day cooking and laughing and just catching up on all the pahhenings of the year. All the women spend most the day in the kitchen cooking and sipping wine while the men spend their time watching football. We all come and go chatting and chasing the little ones around and keeping them out of trouble and just playing. Dinner time is crazy, lots of tables and lots of food! Everything and anything you can think of, we eat it! After dinner is all the deserts, pies and candys of every kind. I usualy fall asleep so I don't have to help with the dishes but my mom finds me and makes me help but that's okay.... I love the holidays in general but Thanksgiving is one of my favorites.

The 2109 family

The Family in the year 2109 will be very different from ours now. The true “family” started slipping away with the invention of the TV tray. As more and more cell phones and I pods, WII’s and other gadgets come about the more detached we become. Children sit at the table and text theirs friends, if they are sitting at the table at all. Parents and children aren’t talking because they can’t hear through their I pods, or over the big screen TV. Children are forced to grow up entirely to fast these days and I feel it will defiantly adversely affect our future as a family.

community

Community to me is the people I share beliefs, interests, likes and have common vested interests. They are also about human interaction and building and maintaining personnel relationships. Some religious and social clubs can be very exclusive and secretive communities that can be hundreds of years old.
Communities in the modern world can range from communities of practice that large companies use to share best practices, protocols and up to date information about the company via the internet. There are tons of gaming communities where gamers from around the world can compete and work towards a common goal in many different gaming systems. In order for any community to survive it must bind individuals together in some pursuit of a common interest or goal. Today people can be involved in many different communities and never see or have any face to face contact with its members. This lack of physical contact seems to build bonds that can easily be broken or swayed. In small town communities usually everyone becomes part of your extended family and individuals have many people they can turn to for support. Today’s communities tend to lack loyalty and put individual needs before the group.
Social networking sites have opened the world to invite members to join communities around the world with the click of a mouse. While this may be lacking the intimacy of face to face interaction members can now explore the world and join communities that would have been impossible just 10 years ago.

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty on college campuses has always plagued modern learning intuitions. Today with the internet making plagiarism as easy as research students must make integrity choices for themselves. Universities have begun to push “honor codes” on students hoping to curb cheating by students. The effectiveness of this strategy remains to be seen and many believe that this is a clear indication that the nation’s moral compass is off.
In the military each branch of service has core values that help instill members with simple and clear guidelines for helping them become better soldiers and leaders. The first Air Force core value is “Integrity First” because integrity is the essential element or the foundation on which other values are built. This is important because military members represent our nation to the world and the poor choices by a few can become international incidents. Lack of integrity can lead to failure of the team or lives lost. On college campuses I believe that “honor codes” on campuses are not worth the paper there written on.
Students must make integrity choices themselves and signing a piece of paper at the beginning of the semester can easily become a distant memory when it is 3:00 a.m. and your grade for the semester is riding on what you have delayed working on until now. The choice on which path to take will be made on how you were raised and what you believe in. Not a piece of paper from the school. Dishonest or lazy students will not be deterred from cheating if their belief in completing school is more important than how they did it.
I do agree with students being clearly informed of the consequences of poor choices. Colleges that use Turnitin.com or Safeassign.com provide students with instant feedback on what they have submitted compares to millions of other sources. “Honor Codes” are only a small piece to curbing academic dishonesty but this need to be used in conjunction with clear consequences to cheating in anyway.

Reality TV

Watching reality TV is the same principle as when you are driving down the street and you just can't help staring at the car wreck. Eventually people become desensitized to it however. These shows only tend to last a few seasons and then someone else comes along and makes a new show. Producers make these ridiculous shows because somebody will watch them, and there are so many to chose from. Shows such as Survivor pit people against others to win a prize, they lie to each other, they make pacts with other team mates or they become genuine friends. Then there are the shows Nanny 911 and the Biggest Looser. At least these shows offer some sort of help to the people on them and the viewer. The most pathetic of all are the many, many shows of washed up old famous people making fools of them selves, Rock of Love, Surreal Life, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Run DMC's Runs House and the list goes on. They are watched because the public wants drama, they want to see other peoples problems so theirs lives don't look so bad. It is easier to make fun of other peoples lives than pick at our own. It is a prime time soap opera, it is a look at others lives.