Online Learning as an option at White Mountains Community College
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community CollegeDid you know, when you graduate from White Mountains Community College with an associate degree, you can continue your education without ever leaving home?
In the past we've talked about the classes we offer online. This semester those classes include over two dozen courses, in subjects ranging from Foundation of Early Childhood Education to Advanced Waste Water Treatment, but did you know you can take the degree you earn and advance your college career online? Here we would like to remind you that we have a transfer agreement with Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio so that you can take the credits you earn through us and use them toward a bachelor degree. Closer to home, Granite State College, which is part of the University System of New Hampshire, offers many courses online. Several years ago we entered into a transfer agreement with the University System, so the credits you've earned taking classes at White Mountains Community College are accepted at all campuses of the University System.
Distance learning, any mode of learning where the student does not have to actually be in the classroom, is not a new concept, but has evolved over the years as technology has changed. One of the early examples of distance education is the shorthand course taught by Isaac Pitman of Great Britain in the 1840s. The improvement of transportation systems, particularly the speed and efficiency of rail transportation, enabled institutions - both reputable and not - to offer learning through correspondence classes. In the United States the University of Chicago was the first major institution to offer a correspondence program. This was in the late 1880s. With each new emerging technology - radio, television, personal computers and the Internet - educational professions have found new ways to reach students, taking advantage of new opportunities to bring students new opportunities.
The Sloan Consortium, mining data from a survey of 2,500 higher learning institutions, reports that in the U.S. over two-thirds of colleges and universities offer online courses, and while some of these are blended (hybrid) classes which require some in-class time, 35 percent offered courses that were completely online. According to "On-line Nation: Five Years of Growth in On-line Learning" published in October 2007, almost 3.5 million students were enrolled in an online course in the fall of 2006.
The chief advantage of online education is that it is not place specific, meaning you can learn from anywhere that you have an Internet connection. For the most part, courses are not time-specific, either, though some teachers may require students to occasionally log on at a certain time for more student interaction. For nontraditional college students, those who have been out of school for awhile and are heavily vested into their own lives with family and work responsibilities, online learning is very convenient. For traditional college students, young people who go straight from high school to college, online learning can provide a vast curriculum from colleges all over the country.
You may discover that online learning is for you! For more information on the online classes that we offer, check out this fall's course schedule at www.wmcc.edu.
Back to News List8/23/2008
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