E-Learning and the cost of classes

[marcbeaudry]

Is it a new or common practice now for Dive shops to charge more for newstudents who use E_Learning for the theoretical portion of their certifications ? isn't it contrary to the actuality ? less instructor and class time from the DiveShop should equateinto a saving for the student - not an additional expense ? my GF is exploring getting her OW cert and seems to be running into a fair amountof shops that want to charge extra if E-Learning is used and in fact some are tryingto charge her for additional 'one on one instructor time ' .can anyone recommend a competent and honest padi shop in the Hong Kong are ? thanks ! marc

 

[Hawkwood]

The individual dive shops do not set the price for eLearning. That is strictly between PADI and the eLearner. Going to PADi's eLearner website, the cost shows as $146 CDN.

The shops set the price for the Confined Water portion.

In our case, the eLeaner pays the same price as a "regular" student, minus the cost of the Crew Pack. There is little benefit directly to a shop with eLearners.

If you are an eLearner and come to our shop for your Confined Water sessions, you will pay the shop to do those. You will either join an existing Class and Pool session for your Confined Water sessions, or you can arrange for a Private session if you want to do it on your own schedule.

You will pay a Private Lesson fee to do it on your own.

eLearning is not supposed to be a "cheaper" or "low-cost" way of taking your instruction. The idea is to allow the student to do the Knowledge Development portion of the course at their own schedule and pace. It's really designed for folks who cannot fit into a shop's classroom schedules, for whatever reason.

We have a lot of folks who live in the country and it is much easier for them to do their course work on their own at home and then schedule a time to come into town for a single day to complete their Confined Water dives. They pay for a private session. For them, eLearning is a convenience.

Bill

 

[oly5050user]

Is it a new or common practice now for Dive shops to charge more for newstudents who use E_Learning for the theoretical portion of their certifications ? isn't it contrary to the actuality ? less instructor and class time from the DiveShop should equateinto a saving for the student - not an additional expense ? my GF is exploring getting her OW cert and seems to be running into a fair amountof shops that want to charge extra if E-Learning is used and in fact some are tryingto charge her for additional 'one on one instructor time ' .can anyone recommend a competent and honest padi shop in the Hong Kong are ? thanks ! marc

we charge about $35 less for elearning in a scheduled GROUP class where everyone must do elearning. Only because there is about 5 hours less time spent in classroom. For "one on one" we again charge ELEARNER about $100 Less than standard rate of $650 for a private class.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

As Hawkwood says, it is the training agency that set the price for e-learning, and none of this money gets passed on to the chosen dive centre that students affiliate to for their water based training. For some agencies like PADI, this can be pricey ($130), whereas some agencies, like SSI offer it for free. You are paying for the convenience of learning at home and saving time spent in a dive centre classroom - as a dive centre based in the tropics we often get enquiries about taking e-learning so students can swap their classroom sessions for beach time! However, the costs for the dive centre are not dramatically reduced. E-learners still need to complete a review of the material with their instructor, and in most cases complete the final exam too, so they still need some land based instructor time as well as the bater based sections. Its the water portions of the course that are the most expensive - instructors time, pool space, equipment rental fees, boat captain, fuel costs etc etc - you get the picture. So there is not really a great deal the dive centre can do to reduce the price for you - other than a small deduction to make up for not having to purchase the full crew pack.

To be honest, if your gf has the time, I'd recommend sticking with the normal OW schedule including academics taught by her instructor. Its purely my own opinion as an instructor, but I'm not a huge fan of teaching online learning students. First of all you dont get the opportunity to build rapport and trust with your students before the waterwork sessions. Also the online learning, to the best of my knowledge, does not expose students to the full syllabus (ie a full online copy of the manual) that regular students get. As such, there are questions in the final exam that online learners do not know the answers to without further councelling from their instructor. Dont get me wrong, this can be true of the paper based manual knowledge reviews too, but thats the whole point of the instructor doing academic sessions - to fill in gaps, explain things more clearly, expand on important points and give examples and stories detailing the practical application of what you are learning into the open water environment. Basically ensuring that you have a thorough understanding of all the salient points. These are things which the online learner often misses out on.

Sorry, dont know any centres in Hong Konk, but good luck in your search and I hope your gf enjoys her course, whichever way she chooses to learn

 

[Redshift]

It will depend, if the school charges more for teaching the theory part than PADI charges for the e-learning, then it would be cheaper, but if the school price is lower, then taking the online course becomes more expensive.
I don't know how realistically schools divide their theory / practical lessons costs and if they don't assign a small value to the theory so they can get students to do the whole thing there and not online, but if you think about it, the costs are more on the practical lessons, pool, equipment, etc...