By Ukaab H. Reshi, Riyaz A. Bhat, Mir A. Jan and Mir. I. Farooq
As we are all aware of the fact that the Coronavirus infection started as an outbreak in a Chinese city, Wuhan, in last quarter of 2019 and then spread across national borders giving it a shape of a global pandemic. To prevent community transmission, the governments of almost all the countries started imposing nation-wide lockdown so that people can stay in isolation, protecting themselves from infection. With the result, the academic calendar and work schedule of all educational institutions and the sector got hit across the globe. Since students are the future of every country, governments needed to plan some alternative methods of keeping the education sector on the boil.
After some countries, which were already equipped with good technology and gadgets and had been taking online classes for a while, shifted to online classes, other countries followed the suit. The idea behind it was to break the chain of the new virus. Students can practically remain physically disconnected and study at home, all they need is the internet connection and a mobile phone or a computer. Not only this, teachers can send important links or some videos or notes and even presentations to students via WhatsApp for their convenience. Some teachers are even choosing to broadcast lectures over televisions so that the right to education is not compromised, since some poor students can`t afford to buy the modern gadgets needed for online classes. This technology proved to be of very much use to the students and teachers alike. But every technology has some positives and negatives in it.
Advantages of online classes
- Convenience: teacher can deliver classes as per their convenience
- Flexibility: students have flexibility in choosing class times
- Online classes bring right to education home
- This mode provides more individual attention to average and below-average students as students can contact their teacher over mail, phone, etc.
- With the use of videos or presentations learning is made comprehensive, easy and interesting
- Reduces financial costs in terms of bus fare and other miscellaneous costs to students
- It promotes online and computer skills. A student can acquire a good amount of computer skills which can further help him in future.
- It helps to build self-knowledge and self-confidence and encourage student’s responsibility of handling themselves.
Disadvantages of online classes
- Online classes make it easier to procrastinate.
- They are time-consuming than on-campus classes.
- Requires good time management skill from both ends.
- These may create a sense of isolation. There is an absence of opportunities for collaborative learning.
- It does not have an instructor pursuing students to stay on task.
- Learners with bad study habits can easily fall behind.
- In a virtual classroom, hands-on and lab work are difficult to simulate.
- Online education creates a kind of monologue in a learning environment.
- Online learning requires the use of a computer and other such devices; this means that eyestrain, bad posture, and other physical problems may affect the learner.
- It is easy to know and understand a student’s response in a physical classroom through their gesticulation, but it is very difficult otherwise.
- It is difficult for poor students to purchase mobile phones, laptops or get access to an internet connection.
Hindrances to online classes
No doubt this technology is of enormous importance in a situation like a current pandemic, there are still some hindrances which make the conduction of online classes difficult and they include:
- Availability and speed of internet connection.
- Availability of mobile phones or laptops.
- Availability of software programs.
- Security and privacy on the internet.
- Computer literateness.
- Lack of motivation.
- Inadequate technical competence.
To sum up, although this step has proven a saviour at the time of no other hope, we can’t just imitate the developed countries which are fully equipped to take such steps unless and until we customize the technology in terms of our requirements. In a place like Kashmir, this idea has become a joke since the teachers have to teach students on a throttled speed.
The authors work in a Division of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Srinagar, Kashmir.
