13.8 :-? Cheryl to Thomas' intro

13.8.10 :-) Anthony

There have been several comments about the availability of assistance when participating in online discussions. Some of the proposers have suggested that this easily available online assistance is evidence that online discussion is somehow superior to face-to-face learning. But is it, really? Or is easily accessible help decreasing the type of activities necessary to produce an autonomous and independent learner? When help is just a click away, do we tend to rely on that available help rather than rely on our own abilities? Is it easier to ask the professor rather than take a chance and exercise our own judgment and decision making skills? I am not proposing that students suffer and struggle in silence by not asking questions; however, I am challenging the belief that accessibility to online help produces superior outcomes.

In the real world as opposed to academia ... when will you be without help? At work if I need to know something that occurred before I got there, I ask my boss. If I need something researched I call up the company's tech librarian. And what is that help anyway? They're not reading and processing the data for you. You have to do the work. The help gets you past what you can't figure out. Would you rather get stuck and have no way out? What does that help amount to as well? In my case it's using the online library to look up related documents to view other perspectives to increase my understanding.