The Classroom or the Web

Nowadays, we face globalization all over the world. One of the ways it is displayed is the development of global media and the Internet. The latter became an international mean of obtaining information on the variety of issues from news about celebrities till scientific discoveries. In addition, more and more information appearing on the net is used by students in the study process.

Nevertheless, not all teachers and professors accept this kind of resources and even forbid their students to use the Internet and to reference to it. Such teachers stick to only traditional means of learning in the classroom. In the meantime, others think of it as of a valuable source of information, which is easy to access for most people. This paper will present the comparison of classroom and web as means of studying. In particular, the benefits of both methods for students and teachers will be examined.

The first point to examine is the accessibility of classroom and web learning. The Internet is easily accessible to students since they do not have to go anywhere and are able to use their home computers to study or gather information. However, some websites do not provide students with good sources of information, since their quality can often be questionable. In the meantime, libraries can provide students with good books and journals to study information they need, but it is harder to find information there. Thus, at this point, the Internet wins due to its accessibility. However, it lacks an ability to choose sources wisely.

The next point is the price. Web education is considered to be much cheaper, especially for the students who live far from the colleges. However, classroom learning becomes more expensive, partly due to the spread of web learning, since less students start attending classrooms, while institutions need the same level of maintenance. Nevertheless, online education seems to benefiy at this point as well.

Quality of web and classroom learning is the next point to examine. Many people still tend to think that classroom education provides a better quality than online learning, because in this case, the feedback of students will be interactive, since they will be able to cooperate and communicate not only directly with the teacher, but also with other students in the group. Discussion and debates on various topics, which take place in the classroom, will bring more benefits to the study process and teach students to develop, express and persist in their points of view.

In the meantime, some students prefer web learning because they either live far from educational facilities or do not have a possibility to study away from home due to illnesses or other personal issues. Thus, online learning is the best way out for them. In addition, even though it is almost impossible to create a real atmosphere of class work on the net, there are still various ways to get feedback from students and interact with them.

Summing up, it is possible to say that both venues have positive and negative sides. Therefore, there needs to be a way to combine them. Scholars researched that topic, and their results prove that such combination is extremely beneficial for both sides (Bento & Bento, 2000). Teachers need to be able to plan and organize the study process in a way, which will involve the use of web resources, web-boards, chatrooms and other means of interaction. In this case, they will make the study process interesting and beneficial for students and for themselves.