Online cert? Have you seen this one?

[sarita75]

Call me old fashioned, but I like teachers. Being an instructor isn't only about guiding someone into the water and teaching skills in the pool, IMHO. That being said - I don't, personally, have any experience with online courses.

When I did my OW cert I was required to read the books, watch the video and do the homework before coming to class. I had class 2 nights a week for, I believe, 1 month. Each class was 1-1.5 hours in the class room, 1.5-2 hours in the pool - setting gear up, taking it apart, drills and more drills. I was, and to this day still am, impressed by the quality of the education that I received. For this reason, I return to the same facility for further training. I was held accountable by the "Three Joes" (my instructors were all named Joe) for knowing the physics of diving, etc. While I was nervous, I understood the reason behind needing to know this and everything else that was included in my course materials.

I guess I don't know how you can take a course and be accountable if you aren't having to face your instructors, etc. I have no personal experience with the online training but how do they even know that it was you that took the online course, not your cousin or whomever?!

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

If you take the exam in person for the OW instructor, does it really matter if you did the on-line work at all? It does not matter how you get the knowledge, only that you have it. People have different learning styles, some people need face to face, some need books, some need hands on. Now, proving that you can apply the knowedge in the water is a whole different ball game.

 

[DeepBound]

Do they allow you to do the pool practice at home in your own pool with a webcam? Then you can record yourself doing the drills and upload it. This would help people in a hurry to just get out and do the real thing, real open water dives. You can have the instructor along to do the required open water skills for your first open water dives but also have some actual fun doing real dives instead of spending a whole day or even a whole weekend messing around in a pool with an instructor.

 

[watercooled]

i'm only ow certified so my opinion may not mean much when compared to many here. i strikes me as a bad idea. theres alot to be learned in a classroom environment, beyond just whats in the books. i know this isn't exactly brain surgey, but i don't think i'd feel too comfortable with the diver who "stayed at a holiday inn express last night" as his only level of training.
just my humble opion.

 

[Scuba-Bill]

It looks like they have learned something from our public schools... what a shame.

 

[MikeFerrara]

If you take the exam in person for the OW instructor, does it really matter if you did the on-line work at all? It does not matter how you get the knowledge, only that you have it. People have different learning styles, some people need face to face, some need books, some need hands on. Now, proving that you can apply the knowedge in the water is a whole different ball game.

It doesn't matter where you get the knowledge. When I was teaching diving, I always prefered that students read the text (book or online, I wouldn't care) before coming to class. Class time was for elaborations and additions to the text.

All the diving texts I've seen are just bare-bones outlines and some leave out some pretty important bare-bones.

 

[Kim]

Well - there appears to be people learning to solo dive from what they read on ScubaBoard, so maybe instructors will soon go the way of the dodo.....

Hell....maybe it'll go full circle and Genesis will end up having been right all along....who knows? :11:

 

[Guba]

Scuba-Bill, I could have guessed you are from Texas. (I'm a professional educator in Texas. I teach science).
Yes, our noble legislators and TEA bureaucrats push that agenda, but rest assured that there are "old dogs" like me out there fighting the system. Forty percent of my class time is in "hands on" activities that include experimentation, field study, problem solving (such as engineering) and actually building things. We resist the notion that "teaching to the test" is good enough or even a valid goal for public education. I may be a dinosaur soon, but until I'm totally extinct I'll teach that way, suffering under the firm belief that THE TEST (Texans will recognize this as the TAKS test) is NOT the only thing kids need to know. As you said, it's a real shame what some folks think is education.

(deep breath...) Okay, I'm off my soap box now. Let us continue with the discussion as it applies to diving. I have to admit, my experience seems to closely mirror Sarita's. The cert classes I took were heavily dependent on the instructor and his/her experience. At that time, technology was limited to some videotapes, which were paused and discussed in some detail from time to time. Yes, it took some time, but I went away feeling it was very thorough and it seemed to solve problems when we got to the pool and skill dives.
As for those who feel that "teaching to the test" is now the norm and that it's pretty much all they observe, I can only stand in amazement. It simply isn't what I'm used to witnessing, but then, things could have changed a lot in the last few years.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Well - there appears to be people learning to solo dive from what they read on ScubaBoard, so maybe instructors will soon go the way of the dodo.....

Hell....maybe it'll go full circle and Genesis will end up having been right all along....who knows? :11:

I think Genesis had a lot of good points.