Critical Mass

Tech Site Ars Technica reports that online courses are increasingly popular at universities across the nation:

More than 96 percent of schools with more than 15,000 students offer some form of online courses. About two-thirds of the very largest organizations offer complete programs online which purport to allow students to complete nearly all of their degree work remotely. These figures, which have also increased from 2004, show that online education has definitely entered the mainstream as far as higher education is concerned.

My school, JBU, offers a very small number of courses online, so I have little experience with them from that institution. However, am currently enrolled in a correspondence course through another university which allows me to submit assignments and check grades online. Once I got into the groove of a non classroom-based course, I got the hang of it. However, I'm not so sure I agree with this statement:

...college and university education leaders by and large believe that online education is as good as traditional face-to-face education, with nearly 17 percent saying that it's actually better. Of course, those same leaders are in charge of developing and ultimately marketing their own online programs, which undoubtedly leads some of them to be bullish in their assessments.

In my opinion, online courses will never adequately replace face-to-face lectures from a knowledgeable and experienced professor. Most of the important things I'm learned in college came not from reading the course materials, but from listening to the profs. CM readers, what experiences have you had with online courses?