According to Claire Major’s Teaching Online (2015). I agree with him that building a community can be a great help in learning online courses. I still hold my opinion that online courses cannot completely replace face-to-face courses

Some online courses use social media we usually use to communicate, including between teachers and students, as well as the communication between students. Compared with professional learning software that requires registration and complex information, existing social media is more convenient, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on.

In my personal study experience, I used an online course website called Udemy. ( https://www.udemy.com/) Because I accidentally saw a report about “Top 10 courses to take on Udemy”. A variety of different courses can be found on the Udemy, such as business, marketing, music, photography, IT and software, design, and so on. However, it is not free, usually ranging from $20 to $100. They will set the price according to the difficulty of the course. Using Udemy’s course development tools they can upload video, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, audio, zip files, and live classes to create courses. No Udemy courses are credentialed for university credit. Most students take courses largely as a means of improving job-related skills.

(image from:   https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj7r9nCxe3jAhXUv54KHU5_AHcQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.udemy.com%2F&psig=AOvVaw0Uc3KOjweSOxt4Cauj5Wm2&ust=1565156280697901)

I was taking a class on basic python. This is a course that requires students to help each other and communicate with each other. The teacher also built a community for us to communicate and learn. In addition to the content of the class, the teacher also let us uses social media to communicate. At that time, we would communicate through message, voice, video call, etc. We don’t know each other, but through common learning goals, we communicate very smoothly and very happy. I still keep the occasional greeting with a classmate so far. However, the advantage of face-to-face courses is that you don’t need to spend time waiting for a reply when communicating with your classmates. After class, you can also share trivial things in life and become friends faster.

I have to admit that the online course has been improved through various methods, like the community. However, it is almost impossible to completely replace the on-campus courses.

 

Reference:

Major, C. H. (2015). “Teaching online: A guide to theory, research, and practice”.