Distance Education

Distance education schools can be extremely beneficial for many students. One pro to being enrolled in a distance education school is that a student can gain an education without ever leaving their home. Students with severe disabilities or sicknesses that are housebound could "go to school" every day. Many students who would not have the ability to leave their home to get an education could have an opportunity to learn at the simple click of a mouse. Although there are some positives to distance education, there are also some cons. The social interaction that is so important for the development of students would not occur with distance education. Students who get an education online spend no time in a classroom with other children. They miss out on important social lessons that a student would learn in a classroom setting.
In order to participate in a distance education program, a student would have to be very self-motivated. It is up to the student to sign in everyday and "go to class." In a normal classroom setting, a student would have social pressures to attend school everyday. In a distance education program, the student works independently at their education so they must be self-motivated in attaining an education.
In order to teach in a virtual school, a teacher would need knowledge about technology. The teacher has to reach each student in a very inpersonal way which can create a difficult time in creating a teacher-student relationship. A teacher should create a comfortable learning environment for their students and this would be difficult in an online world. A knowledge of technology would come in handy to accomplish this becuase of new technology such as skype. Skype could make a digital classroom more personal with "face to face" contact. A teacher should be aware of new technologies in order to better their online classroom.