ByKartik Bajoria
April 27, 2020 (IANSlife) Reports peg global cases of the Novel Coronavirus at over 25 lakhs, with India’s tally having past the 25,000 mark. Many are still of the opinion that the worst is yet to come.
Now juxtapose this with the fact that a sure-shot cure, in the form of a vaccine, is at least a year away, and we end up in a rather unprecedented and potentially catastrophic situation. There are two natural corollaries, one, we must protect our very elderly, and our young. Two, we must find ways and means to return to a semblance of ‘normality’ even if that normal is a highly sanitized, new normal.
It is in pursuit of these above-mentioned goals, of protecting our young, and of life carrying on (despite the virus), that schools, colleges, educators, and learners across the country, are fast adopting E Learning. Lets delve deeper into the nuances of E-learning.
E-Learning – Phased Adoption
First we need to understand what E Learning is. Simply put, while sporadic E Learning by way of Smart Classes, Connected/Virtual Learning was already in practice across private schools in metropolitan cities, E Learning in the times of COVID-19, means, all learning through E Learning. Schools are shut. Students are home.
In such a scenario, while many schools initially adopted a wait and watch approach, a lot of the more well-equipped institutions have now ‘re-opened’ their campuses, virtually. It ranges from certain relatively less-tech-savvy (and/or internet infrastructure deficit) institutions setting pre-made assignments to their classes/students that involves self-study and taking questions on pre-prepared Worksheets – to the more in-sync organizations that have infrastructure, teachers, and a student/parent community that is both well-heeled and well-geared, where these schools are conducting daily school teaching routines, schedules and entire curricula, through live online teaching, using a slew of platforms from Microsoft to Google Hangouts to Zoom & Skype. Here, students are practically attending an entire day’s school, right in front of their computers/screens.
E Learning – Advantages
Now that this E Learning ‘extreme’ has been in-place for a number of weeks, certain clear advantages and disadvantages have emerged. Specific advantages would
include:
E Learning – Disadvantages
While there are obvious and undeniable merits in this new, forced-wave of E Learning, like most anything in life, there is a flipside as well:
Conferencing platforms
E Learning – Nuances
Aside from evident merits and demerits, E Learning in the present covid situation also presents a more nuanced set of circumstances that ought to be brought to light in order to understand the subject deeply:
It is undeniable that E Learning has given scores of students a fighting chance to keep educating themselves in these unforeseen times of lockdown and social distancing. It is in fact without a doubt, much better than something-is-better-than-nothing, is also without doubt. Having said that, there are many facets of this new education-model that will need to be understood, improved, enhanced, optimized, regularized, properly and fairly monetized, and more than anything else, made accessible, en masse.
Kartik Bajoria is a writer, educator, moderator
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