Online universities come with such a bad reputation – diploma mills, student loans, and non-certified professors certainly leave a sting in one’s mouth. However, the online education industry has managed to reach a larger audience than the adults searching for an easy degree. Online schools have now become the focal point of a larger global effort to educate students around the world in impoverished countries. Online universities have thus managed to print out a new name for themselves, within the rubric of online education.
The Huffington Post recently reported on a new effort to teach mobile online science classes to students in developing nations who otherwise would not receive this level of education. While this is not necessarily online universities, it impacts the entire online education community by serving to make the name itself more reputable. Surprisingly, students in many developing nations have a higher access to smartphones and cellular devices than they do to laptops and computers. This is almost a complete turn-around from our own access to such devices; most grade school students I know do not have steady access to smartphones unless I am just out of the loop!
The article goes on to note that while this program is extremely helpful in nations within Sub-Saharan Africa, it is also relevant in states like New Mexico, within our own country. We often are not aware or do not bother to research into the lack of internet access that many people experience even within our own Western nation. The article researches deeper into the claim that many public schools in the US have limited access to the internet, much like schools in developing nation (a concept that many of us find difficult to comprehend). Their results were astonishing. While New Mexico was found to be well below national averages for internet productivity and access, the state itself managed to beat out any similar African nations. The author of the article was almost apologetic at this point – as if we should even attempt to compare one of our states to impoverished African nations. However, the point was clear – internet access greatly impacts modern educational developments, calling for a heightened plan to broadcast online universities/classes to students around the world.
Enter Nature Education’s mobile program. The “digital divide” we have spoken of in the past between developing nations and Western nations is slowly closing up, especially with the ease with which citizens of these countries can access smartphones. Broadband infrastructures are responsible for setting up people in developing nations (as well as citizens within some of the poorer areas of the country) with easy access to educational programs. Our country continues to have pockets such as New Mexico which demonstrate the need for a nation-wide broadband program, demonstrating to many of us that we are not as far away from the “developing” nations as we think we are. Instead, publishers in programs like Nature Education continue to seek to broaden access of scientific information to students around the world, regardless of whether they are deep in Sub-Saharan Africa or simply down the road in New Mexico. Online universities and schools through mobile devices are only the first step for many organizations of this nature.