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Tutors and learning online

Tutors were seen as such an important part of the learning experience by some people that the idea of learning online, without a tutor being in the same room, was a strange concept for them.  There were several reasons why this was the case.

Learning styles and people's perceptions of how they learnt influenced whether or not they thought they would be happy learning online.  Some people thought that they could only take in information from other people and that they would not be able to take in information as well from a computer.

Getting support was not seen to be as easy when learning online.  People knew that they could easily get help when they were stuck if they were taught by a tutor - they just had to put their hand up and wait for the tutor to get to them.  It was not clear to them how help would be accessible during an online course.

Individualised learning was thought to be easier to achieve if a tutor was present as people thought that a real person would be more adaptable than a computer.  Whilst tutors are able to individualise learning to suit learner's needs, learning online was perceived to be a 'one size fits all' affair with no room for flexibility.

Face to face contact was valued by a number of people.  They wanted the opportunity to be able to talk things through with tutors and feared that this would not be possible on an online course.

Emailing was seen as a more time-consuming and less satisfactory way of communicating with a tutor.  Talking on the telephone was more acceptable than emailing for some people.

Some people were happy with the idea of learning online especially when it allowed them to fit learning into their already busy lives.

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