An Online Education vs Traditional Classroom Setting

As someone who has been educated as a nurse in both venues, that is, in the traditional classroom and in the online environment, and as someone who teaches in both places I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison of both mediums and see what you guys think.

I did my general nursing diploma and first post graduate nursing qualification in the classroom before the online education world ever existed (showing my age, I know!).  I enjoyed both these experiences immensely.  As a novice nurse who is a visual learner I definitely benefited from the face to face clinical experience and would recommend this form of education to anyone starting out in nursing.  The clinical and academic parts of nursing are so married together, and when you are starting out I think there is a great benefit of having a physical presence in the classroom and clinical area.  A place where you can ask questions and get feedback real time and relate it to your practice is essential in not just building your confidence but your competency.

Later on in my nursing career I attended graduate school online.  I chose the University of Phoenix to complete my MSN.  This school, I know has varied reviews but I have to say I had a fabulous experience there.  I found the quality of teaching and the sense of community extremely high.  The reason this worked for me is the same reason it works for many people.  I had a growing family and a full time job and just did not have more time in my week to "attend" class.  Working online meant I could go at my pace day or night (and I did alot of nights!!).  When you get to the graduate level, research and projects are done collaboratively in the remote setting anyways so doing it online did not seem to skip a beat.  However, the downside was when technology had a glitch, a power cut, the server being down, email platforms not working efficiently and the dreaded help desk that can be of no help at all.

Many Universities are now 'blended" in that they offer classroom and online classes, I predict this from of educating our nurses will only grow.

I love teaching face to face.  I find I can get to know my students quickly and there is nothing like that non-verbal communication to assess their strengths and areas that need to be worked on.  However, I get to know my online students also, but not in the same way or at the same depth.  When you are a student online you can develop your own online persona.  This can be a plus is you are quiet and shy in the classroom, you can have more of a voice in the online environment.....its not as intimidating.

Do you think there will be a time when we do not need the traditional classroom at all?  My personal feeling is do your BSN in the traditional setting but after that the choice is yours and it can be a very good and flexible experience if you decide to go the online route.