With the bounds of educational technology growing and expanding every day, new learning oppurtunities for students appear every day. For example, distance learning is a new program select schools offer that serves as an option for students to attend classes from home online. But is distance learning have greater benefits than being in the classroom physically? In fact, online schooling can be very hit or miss, and doesn't provide means of hands-on learning, personal assistance, and social enviornment that the true school classroom has.

For many classes, the ciriculum requires more than just readings from a textbook. Group activities, experiments, and other forms of hands-on learning simply can't be executed by just one student and their computer. Classrooms have the physical advantage in comarison to distance learning because they hold the unique resources necessary to bring a teacher's lesson to life. Many students require experiments, labs, and interactive work to truly learn and understand the topic. Online classes are usually limited to multiple choice questions and eduational videos. In this circumstance, a physical classroom has the upper-hand in thoroughly presenting a lesson.

One of the most important aspects of education is being able to attain personalized help almost immediately in your time of need. Whereas with distance learning, if you have a question about a lesson or assignment, you have to email your teacher and wait for a response. Most likely, by the time you receive a reply, you will have already moved on or forgotten about the lesson's contents entirely. Additionally, it's near impossible to be able to solve a students inquiries through an email thread. More often than not, getting help on a topic you don't understand in your online course can be more frustrating than understanding the topic itself. Whereas in a classroom, a teacher can come to your aid as quickly as you can raise your hand. Then, the teacher can provide a physical or verbal demonstration to clear up any discrepancies from the lesson. While online learning can be efficeint, it truly wasn't built with challenged students in mind.

When partaking in an online course, you are left alone with your computer and very few outside sources to guide you. Not being able to have the social enviornment of a classroom can be detrimental to the student's learning cycle. Having classmates you can receive help from can be endlessly beneficial to learning a new topic. Not to mention, group projects build character, social skills, and a sense of responsibility; all things that distance learning wouldn't be able to grant you, working alone. The social structure of a classroom is necessary to create a positive learning experience.

While online schooling can provide varied learning oppurtuinites for students nationwide, the difficulties outweigh the benefits. In regards to hands-on learning, personal assistance, and social enviornment, the physcial classroom is the method the executes these conveniences the greatest. For the majortiy population of students, the physical classroom has proved itself the most reliable for teaching the youth.