Online Classes and its advantages and disadvantages.

 

A few years ago, the world was faced with a pandemic. It affected our very way of life. Social Distancing, and other measures to contain the virus came into effect. One of these are the implementation of online classes. Schools are the perfect environment for the virus to spread; close contact with other possibly infected staff and students; facilities which are seldom sanitized among others. Thus, the solution was to let the students take classes within the comfort of their own homes, through apps such as Google class, Google Meet, Zoom, etc. This however came with their own caveats.

First off, online classes are less immersive than actual face-to-face classes. As the name suggests, due to its “online” nature, a lot of problems would come with it. Unlike actual face-to-face classes herein the teacher is right in front of you, online classes tend to feel more “disconnected”.  Interactions between the teacher and students are limited. Making it tougher for the teachers to make sure that their students grasp the topic. Secondly since the students are within the comfort of their own homes, it provides a lot of avenues for distraction. When in school, you don’t have a phone by your side tempting you to use it. You don’t have video games tempting you to play them, etc. While you can say that this varies from student to student, it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of students “skip” their online class, placing their attention on anything other than the classes themselves.

Lastly, we need a proper internet connection for a stable/proper class experience. This heavily depends on the student’s household and what they can afford. There are also hardware limitations, as not everybody is fortunate enough to afford a fast enough computer. This affects the class’s experience, indirectly affecting the student’s education.

In conclusion, although online classes may seem more “accessible” it has a lot of “cons”. It still won’t replace actual face-to-face classes. This is just a temporary measure because of the pandemic and will be phased out as the pandemic slowly fizzles out. There are a lot of additional factors that can affect the students themselves, making their experiences of online classes highly varied.