Young Students and Online Learning

Online learning is not a fix-all solution. Whether the classroom is physical or virtual, there will always be high achieving students and not so high achieving students. Compared to the physical classroom, online classrooms face the same hurdles along with a new challenge. Three issues that need to be addressed regarding online classrooms are:
1. Gaining and retaining student interest and focus.
2. Motivating students.
3. Teaching students to work independently and use the Internet responsibly.
In the perfect world each individual student would receive a customized project, topic, and environment that would enable them to perform and learn at 100% of their ability, but developing a custom learning plan for each student is impractical if not impossible. If a student is not interested in a subject, the use of virtual devices, tools, applications, or resources would not make much of a difference. Sure the virtual devices, tools, applications, and resources are cool and interesting, but the subject is still boring. If a student is not interested in a subject, they will get distracted and lose focus. Once focus is lost, it is far too easy for the student to open a new window and check Facebook, shop online, or play games when they should be working on an assignment.
Students might be more motivated to “attend” school in online classrooms simply because they do not have to physically commute to and walk into the school building, but they can still be mentally absent in an online classroom. Just because they are electronically logged-in does not mean they are mentally focused and ready to learn. Students can simply “go through the motions” in an online classroom as they do in a physical classroom. In addition, the lack of physical one-on-one contact between teacher and student may hinder the student’s motivation to complete an assignment. Sure webcam communication is available, but its effectiveness is not the same as the teacher standing right next to the student in a physical classroom. Physically attending a live concert is a much different experience than watching that same concert performed live on YouTube.
For the use of online classrooms to be fully effective, students would need to mature and be able to use the internet independently and responsibly. The ability to work independently and the concept of net citizenship would of course need to be taught in school, but can these skills be taught and refined through a virtual classroom, when distractions are only a double-click away?
Online learning is a good supplement to physical classroom learning, but it is not currently fit to replace the physical classroom entirely.