Week 10 Reflections

This week, we looked at globalization and how the internet has changed the way the world operates. One of the specific focuses was on education and how online learning has brought a diverse element to the way education is perceived and delivered. Personally, I have always schooled within the country where I live so I have not had firsthand experience of what it would be like to take a course from a different country or culture.  Also, prior to my enrollment at Athabasca, I had never taken an online course.  In my opinion, the process of learning has changed so much with the popularity of the internet. Learning and course material are no longer restricted to single textbooks but have expanded to include millions of resources on the internet as well.

With this in mind, online courses that are available to students all over the world should not be designed the same way as a course to be taken in a brick and mortar school. I think I would be upset if I enrolled for a course in another country or city and all the course content was narrowly targeted at that country or city. I live in Winnipeg and Athabasca University is located in Alberta, If I enroll in a course that focused specifically on provincial regulations in Alberta, I doubt that will be too helpful here in Manitoba. Fortunately that is not the case as all the online courses I have taken have had a broad global approach as opposed to a narrow one.