subject: Online Education: Not For Each Culture [print this page] Online education is a component of a current technological society, as symbolised by developed western nations. Actually, it prepares students and employees for a culture where will be comprehensive interaction with computers, utilizing them for recreation and work. But it is not example of less developed states (even if they seem to aspire after it).
And even in western countries, there are some groups who don't embrace technology earnest (for example, Amish, native Americans) on philosophical or moral grounds. It doesn't seem great to insist on a kind of learning, which is ideologically rooted, till the students embrace that ideology as well.
A far worse side of the culture gap can be the Digital Divide. Actually, it has been well reported how computers are simply accessible to the "haves" (for instance, middle to upper class suburban/urban) and not so obtainable to the "have nots" (for example, poor inner city/rural people). It introduces a social layer to online education which is highly unsuitable. In theory, the cultural gap can be erased when computers as well as internet access are as cheap as radios or televisions, but that has not happened yet.
And it is worth thinking about the double-edged weapon of online education for disabled people. On one hand, courses online enable people with disabilities to study much more easily as they do not need to travel to take their classes, plus there are a great number of forms of assistive methods compensating for specific disabilities. In addition to this, newer online courses involving graphics as well as multimedia components are very frustrating and unserviceable to handicapped people. That is why there is a situation when courses provided on the Internet could be a good boon to a big piece of the population, but can disenfranchise them as well. So, when considering an online education, you should take into account this aspect too.
