Online Education System and Its Relevance during Pandemic period

With the ongoing pandemic that the world is experiencing, who doesn’t know about online education? Even kindergarten students are well versed with apps like Zoom and Google classrooms. In the current scenario, online education is a boon. It is a student centric, interactive system which has not one but many benefits.

One of its biggest benefits is the fact that online education is convenient. Students can access their studying material from the comfort of their homes. This has been extremely helpful during the world-wide lockdown we had where students didn’t have the option of attending schools. It helped them continue with their academic life without risking their health. Other than this, students who are working and are not able to afford traditional education are also benefitted from online education system.

Another advantage is that the classes, the study material and even the tests are more interactive, fun and give a quick feedback. The grades can be quickly reviewed and students get an instant result. This helps the teachers too as they don’t have to sit and read through every single paper.

It is through the online education system that introverted students feel more comfortable in class. In a traditional classroom, the students are put on spot and feel intimidated by their peers and teachers but on an online platform, they feel more at ease as they can easily unmute to answer or ask the teachers to clear their doubts privately.

The online education system is cost efficient, instant, flexible and more accessible for different students coming from various backgrounds. It saves a lot of time and money. Students don’t need to buy expensive reference books or write lengthy papers anymore. Everything is taken care by the online forum the schools provide.

While this new system has a lot of benefits for everyone, the students, the teachers and the parents; there are ways it can be improved. For example, teachers can revise their syllabus or teaching methods which are more suitable for online teaching. Subjects which require practical, hands-on teaching could be exchanged for those that could be learnt from the student’s homes. Certain teaching methods can be adapted to better the whole experience. Teachers can go for polls, MCQs rather than essay-based answers. This not only makes the material easy to learn but also fun. Also use of videos, audios, google forms, discussion groups could make the class more interactive than just reading the textbook.

Teachers should make good use of technology; they can use animated videos and other creative study material to explain the concepts. Visualization of study material would definitely help the students to retain the material longer in their memory. Concepts are simplified with the help of such videos.

Setting clear expectations is one thing that should be done in the beginning of academic year. Teachers could dedicate one session on just introductions, talking about what students expect from this course and what the teacher expects from their students. Rules and boundaries like submitting the assignments on time, actively taking part in the quizzes, answering in class, etc. should be discussed as this will help break the virtual distance between the teachers and students. The students are more comfortable and there is proper order in the classroom.

It is difficult to bring the feel of real classroom to an online platform but it is not impossible. There are many ways this can be a fun experience for both the teacher and the students. With a little help, online education can be the next best thing that happened to students.