I’m certainly counting on online offerings for post-high school homeschooling.
I’m not sending a daughter off to some hedonist institution just because that’s what’s expected next in her life.
When I took my first online course in 2001, it seemed like a real novelty—classes originated at a school 2,000 miles away, my classmates were from as far away as Australia and the Philippines, and my term paper wasn’t written on paper.
I teach an on-line course in Just War Doctrine. No video lectures. I assign readings in the textbook(s), and prepare a reading of my own, the purpose of which is, like a lecture, to lead the student through the important points in the textbooks. I'm available via email daily. The software allows for student discussion, much like what goes on here on FR: post a discussion question, and the students enter comments. They are aware that their level of participation in the discussions will affect their grade. The big advantage, as I see it, is that students can read, comment, etc., at their convenience. We don't all hafve to be on-line at the same time.
the setup seems ideal for liberal arts courses. However, there's the matter of engineering/science courses, which really need labs. Years ago I took a correspondence course in TV repair (the VA paid for it, and part of the course was to build a TV set, so I thought it was worth the effort). I was really surprised at the extent to which they provided "lab work" so I could learn what goes on inside a TV set. I built test instruments, calibrated them, and used them to check out the TV as I built it, stage by stage. My point is that I think an on-line engineering or science course could provide lab work as well as is done in a residential college.
I don't think an on-line course should mimic a lecture course. The medium is not the message. The trick will be to decide what the students need to learn during the course, and use the strengths of on-line presentations to provide it.
In the lecture courses I used to each, using a blackboard, it often occurred to me that if Socrates walked into my classroom, it would take him about five seconds to realize he should write on the board with chalk instead of on the ground with a stick. After that he'd be right at home. Lecture courses have never really taken full advantage of the technology of the printing press.
The BEST part of on-line courses is that there is no Union-infested teaching staff to indoctrinate you into the Progressive column. You can bet that there will soon be Department of Education clamp-down to stem this non-Union Teaching stuff. Likewise, the handouts of Taxpayer dollars to Colleges should be trickling down, too. Attendance is dropping as they’ve priced themselves out of a job (same as the Unions have done in ALL areas except Government jobs, which is their BIGGEST growth market).