By Matthew Ferrara
As many of you know, The New England School of English has been hard at work developing NESE On-Line, offering the same great learning experience and curriculum that our students have come to expect from our traditional classrooms at NESE Harvard Square. This past month, we were delighted to begin offering students one-on-one private lessons online, and we will be offering both live and self-paced group classes in the near future.
Online education makes it possible for busy professionals
and parents to continue their learning. I should know: I’m one of them! I
earned my M.F.A. through a program that was partially online (what is known as
a low-residency program). At that time, technologies that are now essential to
online education were still in their infancy. Video conferencing platforms like
Zoom and Skype didn’t exist then, companies like YouTube had not yet been
founded, smart phones and tablets seemed like science fiction, and social media
had not become a part of our daily lives. However, even then I understood how
transformative online education could be; to be quite honest, I would not have
been able to afford to go to graduate school if I wasn’t able to also work
full-time.
Over the past few years, I have been taking classes towards
my PhD in Educational Technology, this time entirely online. As a full-time
teacher and the father of three young children, this is only possible because
studying online allows me a flexible schedule. As a fun exercise, I’ve
challenged myself to do all of my doctoral work on my iPhone and, with the
exception of running some required statistical analysis software not available
on mobile devices, have managed to do exactly that. I think this is the best
example of how amazing online classes can be: I do my work when I can, where I
can, with my “school” in my back pocket.
This is why I am so thrilled that NESE is moving into the
world of online education. For almost three decades, NESE has been committed to
providing a quality education to students of all walks of life and to doing so
in an open and supportive environment. It has changed countless lives in the
process. By expanding its reach through online classes, anyone in the world, no
matter how busy their lives become, can improve their English. NESE is now just
a click away!