A blog by Arjun Sharma from Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram
During Covid-19, everyone’s lives changed when the government announced the lockdown. People lost their jobs, got displaced, and this was an extremely difficult time for people all around the globe, especially students. Though many students could have immediately seen this as an ideal situation and a positive aspect of the lockdown. Students would have dreamt about being lazy and not having to attending school. However, this wasn’t the case at all, as everyone soon found out. Schools quickly moved to a mode of online learning. This was conducted using the Internet. It is often referred to as “e- learning” among other terms. However, online learning is just one type of “distance learning” – the umbrella term for any learning that takes place not in-person as in the case of a traditional classroom.
Through my personal experience, I have found that online learning has its advantages and disadvantages. When online learning became a necessity during covid, it had many drawbacks. Health and safety were the immediate driving factors for online learning. The biggest challenge was faced by students from improvised or economically weaker sections of our society. Students from families without means faced many hardships. Online learning requires expensive devises such as smartphones, laptops, tablets or personal computers, which are not cheap. Parents who could not afford such devices needed to quickly explore find other options to get them or their child’s learning might have been hampered. Not only did they need to invest in a device, but the internet access plans were also an added financial burden. This pushed some parents to take loans or some drastically had to even stop their child’s learning altogether and drop out of school. Even after getting an internet connection, the network sometimes lags which again hinders the child’s learning.
One of the major disadvantages of online learning was that students soon lost focus and did not take studying seriously without in-person supervision. Most of the students felt that there’s unlimited access to the internet so they decide to not study consistently and depended on the internet during their exams. If you are taking online programs from home, you know that there will be many disturbances. There is no way to curtail noise inside your home, people moving around, friends who text, social media distractions and it is not easy to switch off and stay focused.
Bottom-line, there are many distractions at home and without discipline you may lose track of your goals and focus in the class you’re attending. It also lacks the comfort of face-to-face interaction. Learning in a physical classroom is interesting and more involved due to the human interaction. There are classmates to connect with and an instructor is present to consult for immediate feedback. This is obviously a major drawback in online learning. There are very few disadvantages but they are very minor compared to the advantages listed above. Apart from the cost of the device, online learning can be very affordable. One can get access to the internet so you can get countless resources to learn from and research. It also saves time. With online learning, you do have to drive or commute and this is an obvious positive impact on the environment. This helps you save time, which you invest in online learning and any other task that needs your attention. So basically online learning is filled with disadvantages with little amount of benefits to match the strengths of in-person learning.
That’s why I strongly feel that classroom learning is appropriate and ideal and it is the complete opposite of online learning. A classroom sets the right tone for learning and offers the best environment to learn. A classroom offers human interaction, friends, and a vibrant atmosphere. In a classroom, you get face-to-face interaction and the teachers can gauge exactly what you’re doing. Teachers can see expressions and body language of a student. When you are in a classroom, generally there are no devices around and students are not easily distracted by emails and social media. This makes it easier to focus and gives a more effective outcome. Furthermore, when learning at home there are too many distractions.
While online learning may initially seem easy and seemingly easier to score good grades, it does not necessarily provide effective learning. Learning in the classroom and in-person is always better.
