On Monday mornings, Will Welch sits in front of his computer for two hours. But instead of playing games or browsing Facebook, Welch is in his world history class.

Welch, a sophomore at Community High School, is currently enrolled in both online world history and online German. Welch is taking these classes because of scheduling conflicts. “It’s not super easy to dual-enroll,  so I had to take some online classes to make my schedule work,” Welch explained.

Online classes are becoming increasingly popular among high school students. Right now, there are 25 states with virtual high schools, and Michigan is one of them. According to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, the number of students enrolled in full-time online high schools in the U.S. has grown from 200,000 to 310,000 since 2010.

Online classes are sometimes portrayed as being easy. Welch partially agrees: “If you keep up online then its not so bad, but if you wait until the end, it can definitely become a problem. I wouldn’t say its really any harder or any easier than an in-person class.”

It seems as if online classes sometimes teach more than the curriculum. Community  sophomore Aaron Willette mentioned that organization is very important when taking a class online, saying, “You definitely need to be organized or else the work really adds up.”

Welch added “I definitely have become more organized since taking classes online, [organization] is crucial.”

It is clear that online classes are different from their in-person counterpart, but some of these differences may not be as obvious as others. Welch had one main qualm with online classes, “With online classes, you don’t have a teacher right there.You can always ask questions but you can’t count on getting your answers right away.” Willette had other concerns. One can take many classes online through Michigan Virtual High School, and Willette took online German. Willette didn’t think that he learned as much in online German as he he would have in-person, “If it was an academic class, I probably would have found it easier to learn online. But language classes are kind of challenging to take online.”

Online classes are being toted as the future of education, and many agree with this. The US department of commerce reported in October of 2010 that 70% of households had access to the internet, and over 77% of households owned a computer. These statistics are only on the rise, making online education not only more popular, but more accessible. In April of 2006, Michigan made taking an online course a graduation requirement. Since that time Alabama, Arkansas,

Florida and Virginia have all added similar requirements.

Online classes provide a new perspective on education and are quickly evolving into a regular part of our curriculum. There is no denying that online classes are becoming more and more popular. Some argue that online classes do not provide the in-depth teaching that is found in “regular” courses, but others say that online classes provide them with the same level of information, just on their own schedule. It really comes down to what the student is comfortable with, as online classes will continue to be a new experience for many students across the globe. Technology is improving every day, and following behind it is a new age of education.