ONLINE LEARNING AND ITS RISING POTENTIAL
The new generations are well-acquainted with the vast world of the internet and its even wider array of resources. From simple tasks like buying personal or business items to entertainment to learning, the internet can do everything for us. From the day it was first developed, it has come a long way in helping people through mundane everyday chores as well as solve complicated business matters. One of the biggest ways in which the internet helps students is through helping them in their education. It is not unusual for a student to take the help of the internet if they are struggling to find an answer to a question related to their studies. Most students have explored the internet for help with their studies at least once in their lives, and now that a decent internet connection is in everyone’s grasp, this way of gaining knowledge has become widespread not only in India but also all over the world. Online learning not only makes the students experience a different kind of studying than traditional school books but also gives them a much, much wider network of resources like books, journals, articles, reading materials, reports, etc. While going to the library is still something that many students like to indulge in, gaining the same knowledge while sitting in your room and opening an e-book seems like a much more comfortable option. Many libraries have in fact adapted e-resources to make students more technologically inclined and also since e-resources are more easily accessible than physical books.
The current situation of the educational institutions has forced them to adapt online studying methods because students can no longer be present physically in campuses. Teachers have been conducting video conferences, audio conferences, and have distributed e-books and other materials that the student requires. The students have also been resorting to online websites rather than actual books. In many institutions, examinations have also been conducted through online portals. It has been about five months since educational institutions were closed, and students have been studying through their computers and mobile devices. Many of them have also started accepting it as a way of studying which takes lesser effort, is most cost-effective, is more comfortable, and is less anxiety-inducing. Online learning has become widespread on such a huge scale that now almost every student is more or less using online resources as a tool for studying. While we can blame this glaring change of studying on the pandemic and government lockdowns, we can also ask ourselves some very big questions:
Was online learning bound to become a household name in the near future? Were students and parents and institutions being ignorant towards this very effortless and comfortable form of gaining education? Was everyone sleeping on it only to now realize how advantageous it is for the students when it comes to their own comfort of learning?
If the current scenario is to be taken as an example, it is clear that many students love this type of learning. They love the flexibility that comes with online learning. They love the availability of resources on the internet, and most of all they love the change from the traditional learning method because a change of scenery surely brings a newfound excitement to the act of studying itself. So the question arises whether this general likeability for the method of learning can make the students opt for it instead of going to educational campuses to learn. If the current situation has made anything glaringly clear, it is the fact that people can try new things to adapt to the circumstances. If online education is now a household name, can it one day become a part of a student’s life even why they have the option of going to a campus to study? Can it one day be heralded as the new revolutionized way of learning, and be put even above the current traditional learning system? Taking a guess at it might not lead us to any conclusions, and we cannot particularly claim whether this will come to happen or not, but the least we can do is weigh its possibility and impossibility, to try and understand whether such a event has the chance of ever happening, or will e-learning always remain as an alternative learning method to the traditional methods, and never come up on top of it.
ONLINE LEARNING: WILL IT OR WILL IT NOT DOMINATE THE TEACHING PLATFORM ONE DAY
If it were to be left to the students to decide whether they would choose online learning over traditional learning, there could be a lot of them in favour of it. However, there are also students who enjoy the environment of an institution. Many students every year opt for their favourite college/university/school campuses. They study hard to cross that mark barrier which allows them to get into the campus that they want to go to because they want to experience the whole of the learning process. For children, their schools are selected by their parents, and until they are old enough to make their own decisions, they are required to study wherever their parents send them. This is a very important factor since parents generally favour the traditional method of earning an education, that is, going to an institution. Internet is a fairly new sensation, and many parents do not want their children to simply learn through online resources. This dislike from parents is important in understanding if online learning will grow since parents are the ones whose decisions impact their children. While many students might choose the comfort of online education over going to study in a college or a school, many parents would rather send them to the said institutions to learn since it has been going on this way for ages.
Online courses are still considered to be an alternative way of learning. Parents make their children opt for online courses when they are unable to opt for the campus courses for a variety of reasons: such as inadequate financial resources, the problem of distance, inability to gain admission, and so on. Online courses are not garnered as having the same efficiency as traditional courses, and this plays a huge role in how online courses are seen by individuals all over the country.
The current situation is very important in this aspect since many people have started to understand now the importance of online learning. Due to e-resources, students do not need to sit idle in their homes during the pandemic. They can explore through their electronic devices, and they can study as much as they did back in their schools. This has made people realize the importance and significance of online learning and how it can help a student improve his or her skills even when they have no access to their educational institutions. All over the country, it has become the most used method of education during the recent months. Even parents have been forced to consider the effectiveness of this learning method, where children do not have to leave their house to study and can access unlimited knowledge and resources through something as small as a mobile device. The opportunities online learning provides are tremendous and many; not only including professional educational aspects and courses, but it can also teach children new hobbies, can make them learn things that are not generally available in textbooks, and also access hundreds and thousands of books they want, without having to search for them through a library or to buy them all. Online learning can be used as not only an educative measure, but also a holistic approach that can develop children through enhancing their skills, personalities, and igniting their curiosities. Thus, online learning is emerging as an important medium for developing children.
We can, therefore, conclude that online learning is on the verge of emerging as an important aspect of education. Through the process of understanding it’s effectiveness, students will have to weigh whether they want to take the chances when it comes to online learning. Nowadays, it is not something that students opt for immediately, it might take some time before it becomes familiar all over the country. It does have its disadvantages as well, but due to its current growing scene, online learning might have the potential to one day become very huge. Whether it will surpass traditional learning is something that yet has to be explored, but if more and more students keep on going for it and start to spread the news of how it is as efficient as schools or colleges, it can one day be regarded as an effective means of gaining an education.
On Ootsuk, we aim to familiarise children with online learning, how it can improve their knowledge, and how it is an effective means of learning. We provide quizzes, contests, and trivia for the curious-minded so that they can develop their thinking capacity even inside their homes without having to go to their schools. Ootsuk is specifically aimed to make children explore the various aspects of learning, from arithmetic to language, to space and beyond. Visit the website to have a fun experience of learning:
