School Online?

This morning I woke up to my alarm at 7:30 and considered getting up and starting my day, then I smiled and pulled my covers in tighter and slept till nine. My Accounting 200 class (which starts at 8) was doing a software day, where we watch an accounting lecture on our own time, so attendance wasn't required and I'd done the work last night. I'd also read ahead in my math text and completed my online homework, so I decided to skip both the math lecture and lab that I have scheduled on Tuesdays. It felt so good to catch up on my sleep, and because I was rested when I got up I studied hard for an ISYS test and just got done taking it.

I love having flexible schedules where I can choose when to study and when to not, I feel like I get so much more out of the experience that way. I've sat through so many lectures when I was so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open, just because my attendance was required. I always end up having to review the textbook and slides and whatever other resources are available, and since the information on tests usually comes from those resources as well I end up not paying full attention in class. I like the idea of having hybrid classes, where a professor offers once or twice a week to cover the material in an optional lecture, and have as the main bulk of information video lectures from the same professor that the students can study on their own time, following the schedule of tests and course outlines. Professors would have so much more time to do their own work and research and whatever else they do, and students would actually get more out of their classes and not just have to cram all sorts of information into short-term memory for tests and then forget it all. Wouldn't it be nice. :)

Here's a YouTube sales pitch for these kinds of classes, it's a little bit stuffy and academic sounding but has some good points.