Why We Have to Take Online Classes

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In the smart era we live in where every aspect of life consists of smart technology, how about your timetable? You may have thought about online classes at least once. DKU and other universities are increasing the number of online classes, which students can take regardless of place and time. Online classes are efficient in not only saving time but also saving money. For this reason, many students prefer online classes. However, does our school implement online classes well? Do online classes follow a relatively poor system compared with their appearance?
We questioned students who are taking online classes this semester on their opinions. They prefer online classes for the benefits of learning by repetition and taking class regardless of place and time. But they pointed out systematic problems. Most students expressed disappointment with the picture quality. Professors prepare slides and write on the slides during class, but because of bad picture quality, students often can't clearly make out the professors' writing or typing. Also, they get frustrated because professors write on the slides with a mouse. 
The sound is also often recorded at a low volume. This makes it hard for students to control the volume. Not only do these problems need to be solved, but a there are other system needs like fast forward. During examination preparation, students do not have much time to listen to full online lectures again and again at the same speed. For this reason there are many students who cannot make effective use of online class time. A successful example is EBS free online education program which has a fairly good system overcoming all of these problems.
Online classes are also a part of tuition and diploma courses, so why do students have to take classes in this poor environment? Some students say that they even are not able to communicate, such as by question and answer, with professors. When they take mandatory liberal arts courses, students who prefer offline class sometimes have no choice to pick between online and offline courses because some mandatory liberal arts classes are only offered online. 
What are professors' opinions about online classes? We asked a professor who is delivering classes online in the Faculty of Arts of Cheonan Campus. His online classes are increasing every year.
"For online classes I just convey knowledge," he said. "In learning, I think that it is more important to convey the professor's philosophy of life or position on the topic than to convey knowledge. But I'm uncomfortable to freely convey my opinion in online classes because my every word remains on the Internet. I prefer offline classes to online classes. But as a matter of school policy, I have no choice but to give classes online. I also want to provide quality lectures, but it is impossible in the present school system. In the recording studio there are only one camera and one assistant. So it is hard to develop a high quality lecture like those from EBS."
"We provides professor with amount of support fund and online classes are made by professor," said Kung-Yeon Nam, the manager in charge of production and management of online classes. "We often monitor lectures to make improvements. But improvements of the system will be hard right now. More people and more support funds are needed for making great online classes like those offered by EBS. We cannot affirm that the problems will be solved because the budget has not been finalized for improving this system yet. Also, taking courses using smart phones, which many students dream about, is impossible."
School administrators only replied that it is administrative policy to our question about why they are even providing research funding for professors who develop online courses. What is the policy that our school cannot tell students? Isn't the purpose of online classes to give students knowledge regardless of both time and place?
For a time, wet blackboards were used in classrooms for students' health. People thought that it would make a nice school environment because markers were used instead of chalk and they could be cleaned with water. Thus, the Ministry of Education installed these with an immense budget. But when the installation was complete, it turned out that the markers used for the wet blackboards were not economical and wore out quickly. Also, the results of research later said that the materials in the markers were worse for human health than chalk. Eventually, installation was halted, and the big plan for environment-friendly blackboards purchased with a huge sum of money was a failure.
Online classes at our school are not much different from that. We are biased toward new things unconditionally, leading us to imitate and only follow other schools because of a trend. These things are our school's present address. Clearly, the original reason for starting online classes was to help students. In our school's case, 60 percent of students commute to school from their homes. Online classes were planned for them. They can use attendance time efficiently, and they will not face barriers to acquiring knowledge at home instead of at school. But online classes have many deficiencies compared with their original intent. Are these classes serving only to meet a formal need in fact stunting the right of students to learn? Our school should think about whether to just follow school protocol or to consider the voices of students.


Eun-Jung Cho  dkherald@gmail.com
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