A decade ago, attending a major university or community college was very different. Waking up early, getting out of bed after a night of study (partying), getting dressed, and being on time for a Psychology 101 class at 8 in the morning was a drag. Being an off-campus student made this even more difficult, due to commuting and often turning around and hitting the alarm or turning off the alarm altogether happened too often, having an adverse effect on those dreaded classes based on class attendance and participation. Fortunately, the Internet and the daily exponential advancements in home computers and broadband technology have made the commute for some college students a simple click of the button or mouse.
Today, many colleges and universities attract future students with the freedom that online classrooms provide. No more getting up early, gathering your notebooks, pencils, and papers, taking the time to groom and dress in a way that will impress your instructor or classmates, and running around the yard in a dead sprint to get to your class on time. Students can now get out of bed in the clothes they slept in and enter their virtual classrooms online, without worrying about stagnant traffic, inclement weather, or a multitude of other obstacles that prevented their previous Internet predecessors from will arrive to class. . This online option helps increase enrollment of distance learners, virtually allowing an entirely new population of students the immediate ability to attend and learn while providing advanced learning institutions with new opportunities to augment all major university coffers with the newly acquired tuition money.
Another positive for universities that can be attributed to the increase in online enrollment includes the attraction of new teaching staff due to flexible schedules and the denial of faculty travel. This helps reduce college costs related to faculty commuting, such as parking allowances and gas. Lowering salary costs allows more money to be focused on essential programs that may lack diligent financial attention.
Due to the great advancements in live broadband streaming technologies, online classes have the ability to be as interactive as those held on campus. With an open connection to student webcams, students and instructors have the ability to converse, theorize, and discuss points in real time and “virtually” face-to-face, allowing exchange of ideas between zip codes and time zones. without any interruption. Large Internet transmission system providers like Whiteblox and others work diligently to ensure that colleges and universities have the tools they need to use these new and ever-changing technologies as they become available.