Sample Blog Comment



Responding effectively to blog posts takes practice. Before you post, consider your audience, the topic and your tone, then write accordingly. These principles are the same for writing online, writing an academic paper, or any other writing task.

Below is a sample of an effectively written blog comment posted by Dayne Sterling in response to an article posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled "Don't Confuse Technology with Teaching" :

I think this is a very good point you may be learning the material but you are not creating new ideas just getting what could have already been obtained from a book. This is an issue that has been around since the beginning of written material. When skills could be learned only by through the teaching of a master to an apprentice the creation of the book played the same role as the internet does with college. It’s the age old conflict of formal education vs. self-taught.

Those self-taught are at a severe disadvantage to those with formal education in terms of scope of understanding of material. An example is if you read how to be a blacksmith you more than likely won’t make a perfect samurai sword on your first day. This is because you lack the practice and the only resource at your disposal is the book you read. While the apprentice has the book and the many years of the master and his mistake and tricks he will pass down. However, he too will not make a perfect sword on the first day but he will have the advanced guidance at a foundational level. Education is not a business about passing on success but rather a business in failure. Education is about identifying failure and helping guide us through and teaching the correction so the next attempt the same mistake will not be made. Learning is only half of this process with the trial and error process because of the lack of a master who has made the mistake before.  

Ultimately there is no real difference between online classes and face to face in some subject matters but in other it is a huge difference because of the hands on and interpersonal aspect to them. With regard to Harvard offering free online courses it does not seem to effect the educational system much more than a that is more accessible would.