Learning is one way to success. People who aim for a suitable career strive hard to finish schooling. This gives them the chance to advance on a professional and personal level. However, there will always be challenges and changes that students will experience, which can give difficulties in adjusting to the demands of learning. This is when online education was offered by schools. For some students and educators, this is a good change. But for others, it is an added financial burden as they need to have the resources to be ready for it.
These days, online learning has become common in many schools because of some inevitable challenges that happen along the way. Some students approve and prefer online learning, but not all. Just like any other thing, online education has its pros and cons. It is just up to the students and educators on how they deal with it. The decision of whether to go online or traditional in learning relies on the preferences of the school, students, and educators.
Advantages of Online Education
Convenience
Convenience is the most obvious advantage of online learning. Students who have difficulties commuting or traveling will benefit a lot by attending a virtual class. With this, they can learn anywhere they want to stay. They can take the classes at the comfort of their home even in their house slippers and pajamas. With an online class, they just need an internet connection and a computer.
Cheaper
There will still be tuition fees to pay but in a deeper sense, online education is a lot cheaper. It eliminates the transportation expenses, food, clothing, and school supplies since students can take the classes in their homes.
Promotes More Learning Opportunities
With online learning, students can easily find tools, programs, and apps that will help them learn more. It is easy to find help online as everything is more likely available at the mouse click. For instance, if the student has difficulties balancing their schoolwork, they can easily search for paper writing help. There are lots of student assistance sites and apps that they can visit online. This makes learning easier to access.
Improves Technical Skills
In an online environment where there is no teacher physically around to help students with problems they encounter, they learn and improve the skills that they already have. With online learning, students can learn more about technical aspects. They learn to cope up with the technicalities of their resources. This will help them improve their knowledge and skills so they can solve technical problems that happen during classes.
Customized Learning Environment
Unlike in traditional classes where students just take whatever environment the school has, online education allows them to customize their surroundings and environment according to their preferences. They can make a comfortable and appropriate learning environment that will help them easily learn better. To top it off, teachers can also take advantage of software for classroom management to better organize their online classes.
Disadvantages of Online Education
Challenge to Self-Discipline
Since there will be no teachers that monitor the students, they feel they can do whatever they want even when there is class. Some skip the classes because they wanted to do something else. Online learning gives students the sense of liberty to do things that are not related to the class. This makes it a challenge to self-discipline, and it is only the students who have control over it.
Leads to Isolation
Some online classes last for the entire day, leaving students isolated inside their rooms. If this happens every day, they will get used to being alone. It will give them the feeling that it is okay to stay inside their room more often without the need to socialize.
Technical Issues
This is often a problem experienced by many students while having their online classes. Technical issues like computer glitches, slow internet connection, or power interruptions are inevitable. When these things happen, then the class will be interrupted. This is when the students learn to troubleshoot technical problems. The internet has a vast number of answers to technical problems that students may go through. This will become a good step for them to improve their technical skills.
Cheating is Difficult to Manage
Cheating can be abundant in online classes. Unlike in a traditional class where the teacher sees everything their students do, in an online class, control is a challenge for the educators. There will be instances that students use online apps and sites to access answers to exam questions or quizzes. And the teachers will have no way of knowing this. Students these days are “techy” and can easily get to the apps or sites they need. Therefore, educators will have a tough time managing cheating in an online class.
Decreased Social Intelligence
Because of the isolation students need to go through in online learning, they also tend to become socially distant from others. Their ability to socialize with others decreases and makes them feel that isolation can also be good for them. With daily isolation, students have become more adaptable to being alone and not socializing with friends or family.
These days, students can choose whether they want to attend online classes or traditional ones. Some schools still allow the traditional way of learning, but many have already adjusted their methods of educating to modern technology. The adjustments can be challenging, but once the schools and students have seen the advantages and solved the problems with the disadvantages of online education, this will be treated as a normal way of learning.
Online education has become the way of learning for many students these days because of unavoidable happenings in society. Some are still adjusting to the changes in education, but a lot have already adapted to it. Online learning is considered the future of education as the world is slowly moving into the modern technology phase. Everything is becoming modern, online and digital. And education is no exemption.
In the long run, online education will be the natural way of learning for students. This will be widely accepted around the world, especially when students and educators are technically, mentally, and financially ready for it.
