R Lee Viar IV

Personally, I tend to believe that the development of online courses requires a higher level of ability for a number of reasons. Primarily, the need to concentrate on the various levels of technical ability of the learners as well as motivating the students when the in class opportunities are not available. What are your thoughts on this?

Unfortunately, the opportunites for cheating online are numerous and extremely easy to do. The Internet provides the "dishonest" student sites to either copy or buy previously completed assignments. The major sticking point is how to deal with the plagarism and the student claiming they did their work themselves. Too many student advisors and counselors siding with the students and leave the instructor to stand by themselves when dealing with this issue. What are your thoughts on this?

One of my biggest issues is how approachable is the instructor for the online student. Personally, I have heard and seen how the instructors don't want to supply contact numbers for the students. I feel the students may feel isolated enough while in the online platform without further alienation by not be able to verbally communicate with their instructors? What are your thoughts on this?

Previously, I have been very fortunate to have some wonderful and extremely knowledgeable instructors along my educational journey. However, some of those instructors possessed and had no problem sharing their superior attitude that it created an atmosphere of intimidation and arrogance. I believe that instructors should be approachable and respected, not viewed as infallible and aloof. Furthermore, this stunts the learning process to a point. What are your thoughts on this? I look forward to your feedback.