Essay Analyzing Authors' Arguments about an Issue
What do the authors of assigned course texts say about the issue that you have selected?
What specific arguments do authors make about the issue?
What evidence do they use to support those arguments?
After carefully analyzing course texts, what is your own informed thinking about the issue and the arguments that the authors make?
What is your own informed thinking about the issue in response to the arguments that the authors make? What are your reasons for that thinking?
How is your thinking about the issue similar to and/or different from the arguments that the authors present in course readings?
Assigned Readings for Discussion and Writing.
Before starting this assignment, students read, analyze, and discuss these texts:
1. "The Trouble with Online College" by the New York Times Editorial Board (New York Times, 18 February 2013).
2. "Online Education as an Agent of Transformation" by Clayton Christensen and Michael B. Horn (New York Times, 1 November 2013).
3. Optional: "In US, Online Education Rated Best for Value and Options" (Gallup, 15 October 2013)
4. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic, July/August 2008)
5. "Online R U Really Reading?" by Mokoto Rich from The New York Times
6. "Does the Brain Like E-Books?" (an October 2009 New York Times debate)
Subject
Institution
Supervisor
Date
Analyzing Authors' Arguments About An Issue
Online learning and online reading has become the modern trend of education and knowledge finding around the world. This is a model of learning and reading through improved technologies and the use of internet sites that it has made finding education easier and less expensive. This paper analyzes the concept of online learning and online reading by looking at what several authors say about the growing trend in the modern education system. Online learning and online reading has been able to provide access to education for all by providing affordable educational opportunities across the globe.
According to Gallup (2013), online learning has made national and international students get an education at a place and time that is most convenient for them. With the rise of virtual classrooms and online universities, students from all over the world are able to get an education and other learning resources from reputable universities found in United States, Europe and Australia. Carr (2008) adds that the e-learning system enables students access vast resources like videos, images, notes, and texts, at some point they can also assign themselves an online tutor who makes the work of reading much more easier and fun. In most cases as noticed by Christensen & Horn (2013), the approach to the study is very popular among institutions of higher learning. However, there are cases where students have been duped into paying tuition fees for incompetent online varsities which are just there to make money (Editorial).
This is because, with online learning, a student does not have to travel to the institution, so long as one has an internet connection and a computer, they will be able to get access to thousands of universities from any part of the world that seek to provide online tutoring for their clients. However, the issue of online learning also comes with its disadvantages. Online colleges and universities, do not offer credible time for students according to the Columbia University's community college research centre, where they argue that students are limited to the amount of access they have with their tutors (Editorial). In addition, some online learning sites and resource search engines like Google and Wikipedia may not be factual and are based on the opinion of people who visit online platforms and fill it with content. According to Rich (n.p), most students also fail to do thorough research since most of them depend a lot on downloading published copies and presenting them as own papers. Some of these cases have led to failure when a student is caught.
Through online platforms, field research becomes difficult as students get data by just accessing various search engines, meaning most do not get to do actual research when it comes to presenting their t...