Digital Education: An opportunity amidst the health crisis
Benefits of E-Learning at Undergraduate & Postgraduate Level
Covid-19 crisis has been a crisis like no other. Coupled with a tragic loss of life, the crisis has left millions in a near or total breakdown. Millions are fighting for their lives, millions have been rendered jobless, many have lost their income and savings and millions are uncertain over what the future holds. Yet, amidst the horror of this health crisis, there is still something that we can extract from the on-going situation that serves as more of an opportunity for us. And digital education is one of them.
With the current scenario at hand, colleges and universities across the globe have made major alterations to their traditional systems of offline education by adopting new digital and technological methods of exchanging knowledge and information on a teacher-student basis through various platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom and Blackboard to name a few. This system of education has benefits of its own, and apparently, seem to stand more convenient than the traditional former. Let us consider the following.
In contemporary times, people are judged on the basis of how they clothe. A person’s character is defined by the nature of his outfit and not by the potentiality that lies embedded within him. There are many students who own a dozen pair of shoes, t-shirts, dresses and jeans, but there are also many out there who even for a single pair, have to struggle a lot. In today’s generation, no student would love to hang around with the same sweater or the same pair of jeans everyday in college or university. Questions like, ‘what would my friends think of me?’ arises, and the feeling of inferiority dwells in, making the students even more uncomfortable.
Online education has enabled the students to engage themselves with their teachers and friends without really the need to stress about what they should be wearing. They don’t need a fashionable dress, a matching pair of shoes or a nice bag before a computer or a laptop screen. All they need is to decently present themselves before the rest without any fashion stress, eventually enabling themselves to entirely engage in acquiring knowledge and information without fashion related distraction.
What’s more, this helps the parents too in a way by reducing the expenditure on their children’s clothing and to focus instead on increasing their savings for something more productive like for instance, their children’s future education or future plans. Teachers too, stand to benefit from Online Teaching. Without having the need to spend on fashion products, they can increase their savings and use it in other more productive ways. Not only is expenditure on fancy products reduced, transportation expenditure and expenditure on snacks and meals are also minimized to a significant extent, adding up to the benefit of digital education.
Despite the presence of their mentors and friends who are just a call away, online learning has encouraged the students to work independently without the need for much support. Realizing that they need to submit their assignments on time and not having anyone to spoon-feed them with materials to perfect their assignments, they are left with no option but to engage in self-research. Students tend to open their textbooks and to google the materials out which in the process, enables them to learn more than what they should. The hunt for materials involve reading a wide range of books, journals and magazines which ultimately broadens their knowledge by not only helping them with what they need in their assignments but also by expanding their knowledge on things that they had not known before.
While we are grateful to our teachers who would always comprehensively dictate or distribute notes on certain or all topics, there is with no denying that it does little to enhance our level of knowledge and understanding because we do not make an effort to work through them on our own. All we do is try to by heart the given notes and then simply pen them down during our exams after which they are eventually forgotten.
Real satisfaction comes in when we engage ourselves in our work and in our studies, “when we do not depend on others for our success”. Nothing is impossible. And if we seriously take this opportunity to push ourselves to independent learning, we can. It doesn’t matter if we fail at the first or the second attempt, because eventually, practice makes a man perfect.
In the current scenario where attending college and meeting teachers and friends in person is considered risky and is to a significant extent prohibited, and whereas gathering first hand knowledge and explanation from the teachers in the college classrooms have become an issue, online teaching platforms like Google Meet, Zoom or Blackboard give us the opportunity to virtually engage ourselves with our teachers and friends, to virtually meet as a department, to learn from each other, to exchange ideas and information as well as knowledge and explanation at the comfort of our own homes.
Yes, we are unable to physically socialize with our lecturers and friends like we usually do, and of course, the internet may not be very friendly to many, but, we cannot deny over how platforms like these have kept the love and joy of learning burning within us despite the on-going health crisis. Digital learning serves as a bridge that breaks the distance and survives the learning. We are made to realize that teaching and learning, as a process of give and take is not limited within the four walls of our classrooms but can be expanded far beyond through digital learning also.
Today, with the ongoing Covid-19 issue, if there’s one reason students are still together as a department, working on assignments and presentations, exchanging ideas, knowledge and information, appearing and getting through examinations, it is through digital education.
Long hours of college and universities have limited the students’ ability to discover more of themselves and to make use of and express their talents and potentials. Every single student is born with a purpose. Every single one is embedded with a talent that stands unique in its own special way. Some are good at photography, while some at music. Some may be good at cooking, while some may be passionate with gardening. Some may be great at sketching, while some may be good at designing. Whatever it may be, there’s no denying that long, stretching hours of college, with immediate gaps in between, sometimes even stretching at 3-4 hours considering two classes in the morning and then waiting for the commencement of the next or may be the last lecture in the evening, has had immediate impacts upon the students. Some might engage in productive talks and activities but what about the majority? More so, the long hours of offline education with the transportation journey added, exhaust the students inasmuch as even if they would want to engage in other productive activities of their choice after college, time no longer permits and energy is eventually drained out.
Online education stretching between 2-3 hours have enabled the students to make use of and express their talents and potentials, and for many, even to discover. Digital education enables the students to engage in more than one course of productive activity. Adjusting with the online college classes, one who is good at photography can take up an additional course based exclusively on photography, improve his photography skills and eventually even take up a career on it. Those interested in gardening will have all the time to work on it right before or after classes, and those interested in cooking may improve their cooking skills and even try something new, likewise, pursuing a career on it.
In this manner, students are made to realize that they have choices to make over what and how they would like to pursue their career. They are made to realize that they are blessed with capabilities and talents that no other can steal from them. They are made to realize that if they do not excel in education, if not grade A or B, that’s because they are born for another purpose that far exceeds the success of college grades. They are made to realize that no student is one and the same. That each one has the capability of doing something that he/she is uniquely blessed with. That there is something out there that they love to work on, that they enjoy and are passionate about. And that no other should stop them from playing their role because there is where they are at their best.
Of course, the traditional system of education has been fruitful. We do not condemn its practice. This system has generated some of the most important men and women who have played a role in making the world a better place. But undeniably, digital learning plays a more interesting role by minimizing economic challenges and by paving the way for students to discover their abilities and to make use of them in a manner which would have been challenging otherwise.
That being said, digital education has however not always been successful, it has failed too. It has its own critiques and many have stood against its practice considering its most crucial setback-“the digital divide”. While this has been and continues to be a setback to digital learning, there is no denying that this system of education, if well established, comparatively has an upper hand to the traditional former.
