The schoolbusses are gone form her comfortable Brecksville neighborhood, and Cheryl Laubacher has had her second cup of coffee. It's 7:20 a.m. And she's off to class. But she's not going to a classroom, she's going to her basement. ..And Laubacher's pint-sized watchdog Barley is her study partner.
Laubacher: "The first thing I do is make sure the teacher hasn't made any announcements to the class.The last one she did was Friday. Nothing new there."
Laubaucher is working on a degree in court reporting and transcription at Cuyahoga Community College. Her goal is to get in at least three hours of study each day, So at 7:20 a.m., after her 11-year-old son is off to middle school, she and Barley settle down to work.
She types on kind of machine you see in courtrooms, transcribing from a class assignment on the computer screen.
She takes tests this way each week and completes reading assignments and quizzes. She's disciplined enough to ignore the phone or other distractions. But, sometimes, getting things done is a family juggling act.
Laubacher: "Now in the beginning when I first started doing this, they would forget. Especially my youngest, he'd interrupt and I would say, 'I'm taking a test.' He's run away, 'sorry.'"
"Distance learning" still means different things in different educational settings. Some students complete degrees completely online, some come to campus for the first or last sessions or just for tests. But what do students gain, and more importantly, do students lose when they decide to forego a traditional classroom?
Allen: "What's good is that it's anytime, anywhere.
That's Elaine Allen, co-author of five years of on-line surveys for the Sloan Consortium, a Massachusetts organization that studies, evaluates and funds online education.
"In face-to-face education there's often a gender divide, where women are not as comfortable speaking out in class, but they're way comfortable on line, and typing comments."
Allen says older students and postgrads tend to be highly motivated and complete programs faster at their own pace. Many students are embracing this new and evolving way of learning, she says. But there's still something of a disconnect with teachers.
Allen: "The one thing we have found throughout our research is that faculty don't embrace online education very quickly. When you're in a classroom, you're really in control."
Allen's latest study indicates that 4 million Americans will take at least one course through distance learning, which makes online education the fastest growing segment of college enrollment. Community and technical colleges continue to offer the most growth. However, Allen notes, there are an increasing number of graduate and liberal arts programs offered, some from big-name institutions.
Allen: "If you take online courses at Harvard, and get a degree at Harvard mostly online, it's a degree from Harvard and you have fulfilled all those requirements."
One thing schools continue to struggle with is social presence, the idea that the student is connected to the university and that professors are accessible.
At Stark State University near Canton, web design instructor Linda Morosko makes that extra personal connection with her blog, called Café Morosko. Most times topics have nothing to do with class, hoping that students will get to know her and each other better.
Morosko: "You see more willingness to share when I 'm asking them to comment on each other's thoughts and ideas or designs. It can be very personal. This week one of my students posted that his brother in law had committed suicide. It told me that I have created an environment of safety. "
That's something teachers and students will be thinking about as they spend an increasing amount of their class time on-line.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3