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Ethernet Education
Anxiously waiting for my freshman year at Drexel to start, I winced at the sight of
the required English course looming on my schedule. All of my fears about the class faded
however, when I saw the class was marked hybrid my head became shrouded with
curiosity. Before the fall term, I had never heard of or been in a course in which the
majority of my grade depends on online submission and discussion performance.
Submitting weekly assignments online and obtaining immediate feedback made my writing
quality soar in just four weeks. The results that I saw lead me to question why more
primary and secondary schools dont format their class around online writing if it has been
proven that online courses strengthen the overall quality of the learning experience.
Teachers and students reflect the quality of the school so it is critical that they are
the focus of the online course study. In analyzing this, the demands of teachers and
students range depending on the education level. Primary schools are required to stay
within a tight curriculum while secondary schools generally teach the application of
advanced practices, which give a breath of freedom. Naturally, the teaching of basics tends
to be molded while higher-level education consists of more variation.

Safety and security are the two concerns that are come to mind whenever an

elementary school talks about an online class. Veering off the educational standard can
draw complaints from a wave of parents. To establish a sense of insurance, Kelvin Oliver,
Shain Kellogg, Latricia Townsend, and Kevin Brady, worked with eight teams of elementary
English teachers to get their position on the matter and laid out their results in the article
Needs of elementary and middle school teachers developing online courses for a virtual
school. After running the simulation with the kids 80% of teachers or strongly agreed that

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safety and security is not a risk (Oliver 72) to the online course format. From this it is fair
to argue that online education will not compromise a schools security and can used at a
teachers discretion. Adding to this, online courses can provide more security than a brick-
and-mortar class. Web development technology for online courses at this level of education
can have set parameters to ensure harmful or distracting sites cannot be accessed. In an
age where technology is rapidly expanding, this security is invaluable to a schools list of
assets. However, longevity of an online curriculum depends on the student experience
early on in their academic cycle.

The popularity of online courses with elementary students in recent years is

unprecedented. The primary reason for this is that online classes share many aspects with
regular classes; making a transition easy. Leslie OHanlon, writer of the article Virtual
Elementary School: Should You Enroll Your Kids explains Kids still read books, fill out
worksheets, write papers, complete science experiments, and take quizzes and tests
(OHanlon 1). Since an internet education provides the same basic functions as a standard
education, there appear to be only benefits. This opportunity, if presented to kids, would
develop their online skills to the level college courses will expect in the future. While it
takes many students years of college to learn how to manage work, it took her [a student]
nearly a year and a half to get ... the concept of being responsible for work (OHanlon 1). To
present this opportunity to students is to provide them a unique opportunity to take
advantage of in the future.
Catching fire in modern teaching techniques, high schools around the country are
eager to add it to their curriculum. Analyzing the structure of these courses is Jon Justis
who wrote Online Education in Secondary School for College Preparation and Improved

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Writing a Teachers Guide with intent to look at how to implement an online hybrid
education unit into an expository writing class (Justis 4). In his essay, there is an
underlying connection between the usefulness an online course has to the teacher and the
value to the school. Plagiarism is a problem that most teachers struggle to catch and can
tarnish a schools reputation if not dealt with properly. An instructor is only human and
cannot catch everyone in the class cheating especially if assignments are hand-written.
Although the introduction of computers has allowed cheating to be as simple as copy and
paste, the ability to catch it is much higher. Justis puts it as the very technology that
makes plagiarism so easy to commit also makes it easier to catch (Justis 87) Schools that
implement the online course format will have fewer plagiarism attempts because students
can no longer forge assignments due to crosschecking technology that can compare
submissions for cheating. This allows teachers to focus directly on the course material and
makes the level of education higher.