The argument is simply this: "there are benefits of online learning that do not exist in face-to-face teaching, whereas there are no benefits in face-to-face teaching that could not exist in online teaching." But what about in practice, where we can actually do more things in person than online? Sure. "You can do online learning well or badly." But the fact that we currently do it badly doesn't make it inherently worse. So we have to ask, then, do "the affordances of being in the same place physically and at the same time... justify the inconvenience and cost?" Now Bates does admit that "there is an added emotional element to a live event that we should not underestimate" but I think he would conclude - as do I - that in many faces, the face-to-face experience does not justify the cost. Certainly, as Bates says, "it is not online learning that now needs to justify itself, but face-to-face teaching."
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