Source: pikist.com
Countries around the world are at different phases when it comes to their COVID-19 infection and recovery rates. While this is happening, there are also more than one billion children in the world that are tremendously affected by the closure of schools due to the coronavirus outbreak. Reportedly, however, Denmark’s students are slowly returning to their nursery schools, and in South Korea, students have been responding to their teachers online.
With this unexpected move from the classroom setup, people, especially parents, are speculating that the rampant use of online learning will persist even after the pandemic subsides. How would such a move impact their children’s education?
The Education Sector
Responding to the substantial demand, several online learning programs are currently providing free access to some of their services. BYJU’S, an online tutorial company based in Bangalore, is now one of the world’s most popular educational technology companies since it began offering free live classes on their app. The Tencent Classroom became a hit since February when the Chinese government obliged their students to resume their learning online. Ding Talk, created by Alibaba, is a distance-learning program designed to support remote learning and work. Within just two hours since it started last month, it has already installed over 100,000 cloud servers.
Source: pxfuel.com
The Challenges Of Remote Learning
Indeed, there are challenges to surpass. Students who do not have the technology or Internet access are having trouble participating in online learning. This barrier is visible in different countries around the world. For instance, while there are almost 100% of students in Norway, Austria, Switzerland have computers and the Internet at home, only less than 40% in Indonesia do.
In the United States, a substantial difference between those from the wealthy and unprivileged backgrounds is seen. In Australia and New South Wales, governments and private schools provide digital equipment to their students. Many people fear that the persisting pandemic will further widen this difference.
The Effectiveness Of Learning
For adults and students who fortunately have access to the appropriate technology, it has been proven that online learning is equally effective in several ways. Studies have shown that generally, students are capable of absorbing between 25% and 60% of what they learn online compare to only about 10% in the classroom setup. This is probably because of the students’ capacity to learn quicker online. E-learning takes them about 60% less time to learn than when they went to their classrooms because they can re-read when they want to, can skip if they already know the lesson given to them, and can study at their own speed. And it helps that they are more relaxed and comfortable learning remotely, without their doting teachers.
Nonetheless, it is safe to say that the efficiency of learning online will depend on the age group as well. With younger kids, the percentage could be lower as they are more distracted compared to older children and teens. To acquire the most out of online learning, there has to be a joined effort to disseminate this system and replicate a physical lecture through videos, apps, tools, and other methods that enhance learning.
Source: pikrepo.com
The Future Of Learning
While most traditional people agree that the unexpected and quick transformation to online learning – with no formal training, insufficient preparation, and lack of bandwidth – will lead to an unsatisfactory user experience that is not beneficial for students’ growth and improvement, others believe that from this system will emerge a newer and better-crossbred system of education that will yield significant benefits.
The Essence Of Spreading Knowledge Amidst COVID-19
Current improvements are usually inflected from major world events, like the success of E-commerce after SARS. There are still many doubts and speculation whether or not e-learning will continue to succeed post-coronavirus, but this is one of the areas where continuous investment is seen. What’s clear as of now is the essence of spreading knowledge across companies, borders, and the world. If digital technology can help with this, it is only worthwhile that we look into its potential.