Online Classes

The majority of the core electronics classes are now available online or online/hybrid. Students can keep their busy schedules and still continue to learn.

Classes Currently Available Online

See below for how online and online/hybrid classes work.

Classes Currently Available Online/Hybrid

See the Class Schedules for when these courses start.

About Online Classes

Traditional classes are taught in the classroom - your presence is required. Online classes are taught through the Internet - come as you are.

In other words, conventional classes have a set time and location that require you appear before the instructor and receive instruction in a set manner. Online classes are often referred to as asynchronous, which means that you log in from wherever you are, whenever you wish, to receive your instruction.

The primary attraction to online courses seems to be convenience. Students can work around their own schedules, without consideration to when they must show up for class. If the student is attending class in their own living room, there are no transportation costs. The student may take as long as they like to receive instruction since it is presented by the computer, not a live person on their own schedule.

But the one convenience of online learning that is often overlooked is the propensity for every student in the class to fully participate. If you have ever attended a large class, you know that only a few students can contribute to the conversation. When every student types their activities into an electronic classroom, there is unlimited space for the "conversation," and each student has all the time they need to form their comments.

For more information on online classes, see the description on the college's web site.

About Online/Hybrid Classes

The college refers to the classes that we offer as online/hybrid as a "lecture/lab" class. That is, some of the course material is presented to the student by the instructor in the form of lectures, homework, and tests. The rest of the course material is presented to the student in the form of laboratory experiments. An online/classroom hybrid course presents some of the material online, but requires that some of the learning experience be conducted in the classroom. Lecture/lab courses are ideal for online/classroom hybrid.

Virtually every electronics course that has ever been taught at any institution of higher learning has been neatly split between lecture and lab. The basic principles are taught in lecture, the techniques in the lab. The online portion of the online/hybrid courses contain the lecture, homework, and tests. The classroom portions contain the hands-on experiments and projects.

For a more complete description of how an online/hybrid course works, take a look at the online/hybrid description for the DC Electronic Principles course, or read the description on the colleges web site.

This page last updated 12/19/06 by Mark Berrett