Aplia is an excellent online education platform developed by Stanford professor and economist Paul Romer. Professor Romer’s intentions were simple in the year 2000. He desired to build an educational technology company that would educate and engage college students at a deeper level. Aplia currently business courses which are used and accessed by over 950 institutions. If I were to take a guess, I would say that many professors turn to Aplia to host their online offering of the course rather than a classroom style course.
First the Good. Aplia does in fact increase engagement and education for the student who is driven by self-discipline and personal success. When a student buys their aplia course (usually about $90 and includes a digital copy of the textbook) they gain access to an excellent collection of interactive tools and content. The quizzes and assignments are regularly scheduled to fit in with students schedules and be taken at their leisure. Aplia also allows the students one practice quiz which, after each question, gives answers and an explanation regarding the correct answer.
And the Bad. I made sure to emphasize at the beginning of the last paragraph that Aplia was good for the student who was driven by self discipline and personal success. For the “slouch” Aplia only feeds that habit of doing just enough to get by. Unfortunately, there is nothing Aplia ca do to change this problem, as the problem lies within the under-acheiveing student. The other downfall of Aplia, once again by no fault of their own, is that their platform makes it excessively easy for professors to put their feet up and do less teaching if any at all. While I have enjoyed my time in my Aplia run Micro-Economics course so far, I am willing to bet my professor has as well – while he is out on the golf course or grabbing lunch at a shiny new cafe.
The Issue (and Solution?). I paid $800+ for my summer micro-economics course – a significant amount of which goes to the professor. In turn he directed us all to pay an extra $90 for Aplia’s superior and excellent set of online educational tools. In an effort to cut out the middle man, the lazy professor, I would be willing to pay about $400 per course if Aplia became some sort of accredited online institution or was somehow able to issue college credit for any courses taken through their platform. Until then, I will continue to study hard and line the prof’s pockets!
*I understand that not all professors are lazy. So don’t get yourself all heated if that is the way that you innacurately interpreted this post.
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