What comes to mind when you first hear… Virtual Education?

            When I first hear virtual education I think of our new technologies and the platforms that have evolved with them. I think of how much these platforms have impacted our society and how many NEW continue to emerge.  It is crazy to see because it has made everything accessible right at our fingertips. I think Virtual Education is a good tactic to keep a community together and on the same page. I think it provides organization, instant feedback, and hands on engagement for a student. I also find it interesting to see how young they are starting to introduce virtual education to our society. Obviously, we use Blackboard as a direct line to our studies at Florida State University. 

This has allowed us to keep things organized, access or grades/homework/syllabuses etc. all on one site.  

This past year, we have also introduced myFSU which is another virtual education platform that keeps us organized and readily available to our important documents. I'm not going to lie, at first I wasn't a fan of it. It was a "new" portal that I wasn't familiar with. But after using it for a year, it has actually made things a lot easier for me. 

This has allowed us to separate our school courses from our health and financial information. It has allowed us to easily access our past, current, and future records at FSU. 

             At my work, we have kids that attend Florida State University School in Tallahassee, FL (K-12 grade). It was very interesting to me because it was literally like a mini-FSU school. And they also use a similar virtual education platform like we do. I can’t even imagine how advanced and prepared this will make their students for college.

This has allowed these kids to be introduced to online course management at an early age. This will prepare them for this type of management in the future. It also teaches them to be organized and effective on the computer. 

             I believe that virtual education is a good thing because it is preparing our society to be more technologically advanced and aware. It is preparing us for how things are going to be in 10-15 years. The virtual education sites we have now amaze me; imagine what they will be in 10 years. I believe that these platforms create a whole new outline for teaching. Instead of shoving papers into your backpack as a kid to take home, they now can access them online and print them from any computer. Or the assignments can even be done online. I think this is a great way to educate and diffuse innovation to our youth. They will be prepared for what the future is going to be. It somewhat makes school an entirely new education system but that’s just how things are evolving. It is a result of technological determinism that is inevitable. Things have drastically changed from when I was younger. I’m sure we all remember FCAT week and dreading those written tests and bubbling in circles all day. Now they are offering kids FCAT online. Things have very much changed and its just something we must follow. Virtual Education has also made it easier for those to access education who have not been able to before.