ONLINE LEARNING – PROS AND CONS

Learning,

All started from “GURUKULS” under trees and “MADRASAHS”

From 100s of students being educated to lakhs now.

Evolved from one-room school to acres and acres now.

In the current scenario, millions of students are being educated with no physical platform.

HOW? Is that a Blessing at disgust times?

Online Learning Evolution

Do you agree? Online learning is growing day by day, Hour by Hour, Second by second as 1000s of students registering for it now and then. One indisputable fact is that online learning is being popular among large masses of students. Why? Is this because it’s flexible? (or) it is more interesting? (or) More effective than the traditional classroom? If yes, there are also students who never take online classes till now, what made them stand away from it if online education is a golden opportunity? Is this because they are not aware of? (or) They don’t have the facility? (or) Do they want to experience classroom fun while learning?

Let’s dig more into it. For anything to say is good or bad, the best way is to weigh its Pros and Cons.

PROS of Online Learning

Before getting into its PROS, Ask yourself, why are you reading this article here in an online platform rather flipping your books at home or in a library. Yes, it’s just because you will get whatever you want in one click and comfort. Now we can dive to know what all the advantages of online learning are.

FREE FROM BORING LECTURES

Unlike the traditional method of boring books, they supply E-Learning materials i.e., Recorded content, Videos and Presentations. Live projects, Digital visualisations, Demonstrations trigger the students’ interests in learning new things and make the concepts clearer.

NO GEOGRAPHICAL BARRIER

Any student with smart Phone/ tablet/ laptop with an internet connection can access millions of course per their wish. They need not travel long distances anymore to study their favourite courses.

AGE LIMIT FOR LEARNING – Never

Sometimes, we hear our parents or grandparents regret that they couldn’t continue their education due to various problems and situations (or) they might not study their favourite courses rather compelled to do another.

So, this is Golden platform for them to avail any courses or materials they wanted to know/Learn about if they have adequate computer skills. Age can be no more bar to deny them anymore from learning their favourite things.

STUDENT-CENTRED APPROACH – High Flexibility in learning

Not all students are the same. Everyone has a unique characteristic inbuilt in themselves and the lifestyle they wanted to adopt. For some students Videos are preferable and for others, audiobooks or Flipbooks. Here students get the opportunity to choose the mode they want to learn.

Not only the mode of learning. Time is another major factor that incorporates and trigger one’s attention.

For eg: Many of us can be “Early bird” or “Night owls” and we prefer learning in different timings. This platform gives us the flexibility in doing so.

Overall, students can learn as per their own time, pace, method and place of learning. They need not move on the proximity to the school or organisation.

BOON FOR WORKING PROFESSIONALS

Working professionals prefer to learn certain courses for their promotional purposes or may be out of self-Interest. It’s a bit stressful for them to go for weekend classes after a long week of hectic work.

As online courses are available 24X7, they can learn at any time, anywhere. That includes their tea break, Travel time to the office, or maybe after work.

So, this allows them to learn along with other responsibilities.

COST EFFECTIVE

Students

The cost of courses is often low compared to traditional classroom courses.

For E.g. – UPSC coaching centres take 1 Lakh or two for a complete course and test series. While you can opt for the same course online just for 10000 to 30000 Rupees!

Added to that, you, along with saving the cost of travel/food, can also save much of your energy.

Institutions

As they don’t need much of the infrastructure to start online classes. They save the cost of rent of building, Benches and chairs, Electricity costs.

One-time investment on developing applications and software(s) at least are likely to give a return in future at a nominal expense to run the institution.

EFFECTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Online education is more consistent in nature. As the classes are recorded, teachers give their best in each and every topic. Even if any student misses any topic or couldn’t able to understand, they can go back to that concept and play n no. of times.

Students also get the responsibility to track their syllabus and keep a check how far they move ahead or lag behind.

CONS of Online Learning

TECHNICAL ISSUES

Connectivity issue is a major failure of online learning. Unless until you have high-speed internet, you are can’t experience hustle free learning. To be noted, high-speed internet package is costly at times. People from rural areas face more difficulties for the same.

Laptop/ Phone crashing is another problem in home learning. If it takes more than expected time to get it repaired, it will curb your 1-week studies at least. Apart from that website/ Software error are disrupt for smooth learning.

SELF DISCIPLINE AND LESS STRUCTURED

You have specific videos to learn but no specific Hour-Set. So, Online learning needs much of self-discipline. They by themselves need to take out time and complete their courses. Knowledge is not the only gain in learning, cultivating good characteristics are also important. As there is less/no any supervision students lack discipline like body language like eyesight, sitting positions and other factors such as grabbing attention, socialising personally, Give respect and take respect concept are missing in online learning.

HEALTH ISSUES – Too much of screen time

Already we will be using our phone/Laptop for entertainment purposes. Now learning through screens causes Eye-Problems as these equipment releases blue rays which is harmful to our eye-sight. For some people, too much of rays cause headache and dizziness.

Not going to traditional classes implies less out-door hang-outs, chilling with friends which create more stress.

CHARACTER IMBIBING

It’s every human’s tendency to imbibe characters of our closed ones (or) the person whom they are observing for a longer time. In that way our teachers, the gem, we never get any chance to see and adopt their characteristics during online classes. Even if you can the part will be very less.

For E.g. – Characteristics like humbleness, Nobel tendencies, kindness, ways to interact with people, Respecting each other.

LIMITED CONTENT

As these are recorded lectures, they always need to maintain the length of the video. This restriction stops lecturer from adding more fun and examples to a particular topic and they need to more of subject-oriented.

NOT EVERYONE CAN HANDLE SOFTWARES

Even though online education puts no age bar. Only those who have knowledge in handling computer and software can make use of online learning. In that way, it will be a drawback for them.

LESS INTERACTION – Postponing things

As a student, even in strict traditional schooling, we used to postpone our doubts, assignments, tests. In online mode, this increases a lot as this is more of self-interest.

Even if a student has come forward with doubt, he/she needs to wait for working hours of the institution and wait for the reply. This takes a long time. This may not be applicable to an online platform. In such a scenario, a student in the absence of restricted hours will be more casual and less interested which will lead to postponement of doubts.

So far we have seen all the PROS and CONS of online education. Is this applicable to all students? (or) Only a particular set of students?

Yes, what you are thinking is right. These are applicable to most of the students but most affected are those kids availing home-schooling. Homeschooling is a bit advanced for younger kids and has more problems.

What are the added advantages and disadvantages for kids in Home-Schooling?

Home-Schooling is not only for kids, but parents have to play a major role in it. The kids need support and help from parents right from handling technologies to understanding what is being taught to them. Also, not every parent is well-versed in handling software, they need to learn before teaching their kids.

In schools, kids have their teachers to give individual attention if they don’t understand any concept (or) couldn’t follow any instructions. But, here parents need to take up the responsibility for the same. In one way it’s good that now parents get an insight into their kids’ curriculum and understand their knowledge level.

For both kids and parents, it’s so frustrating, especially in the beginning if both parents are working but it cultivates patience when it turns out to be a routine.

By being at home, kids also get more of family time but at the same time, they lack social interaction which affects their character building.

<<Also Read: EdTech or Education Technology>>

CONCLUSION

Learning can be categorized. For E.g. Theoretical courses like CAT, UPSC, SSC etc., (or) it can be soft skills viz. Music class, yoga, speaking and listening. etc., (or) practical courses like Engineering.

After weighing online learning pros and cons, we can say online learning is highly effective in gaining knowledge while it seems less suitable for any soft skill developments, and NOT fit for practical courses – until instructors and contents are made that effective.

Why Kailasha Online Learning?

Our mission – Educating students with less/no cost to the end-user. We never charge for any sort of digital learning we provide.
We try our best to make learning fun. The organisation is created with the vision of ‘fun & learn’.
On our android app, we provide live lectures with the availability of recordings. So those who want to clear doubts in-class are forced to join at the scheduled time, while those who have any problems with timings can watch the recordings.
We don’t leave you just the video lectures. YouTube is already capable of doing that as thousands of channels are there. We provide a one-stop solution to all learning issues.
We rigorously work hard to minimize the disadvantages of Online Learning. For technical issues, our development team makes sure that the app is updated twice every month with the latest bug fixes and continuous grievance reporting is maintained. If the structure is a concern, our courses are very much structured in our app. For instance, we give a curriculum in our current CAT course about what, when, how much and how to read. Screen time must not be an issue with our courses as none of our courses demands more than 14 hours a week on screen. The tutors make their presence on screen with the help of webcams and are also available on WhatsApp/Facebook/Phonecall etc to enable students to see them closely and hence enable character imbibing. Our courses have all lengths of videos ranging from 4 minutes to 3 hours, and the issue of limited content is not an issue with courses on our app. As far as software handling is concerned, we provide 1-2 minutes long tutorial videos to navigate through the app and use various features/options, which eliminates the difficulty of software handling with newbies. Postponement and lack of interaction is the last thing you can imagine with us as first few weeks we allow students to understand our course flow and later we remove those who don’t interact at all (after multiple warnings, of course).