The Covid 19 situation has brought about a revolutionary change in the educational sector the world over. Faced with the possibility of having to forgo a year of classroom education, the traditional chalk and talk teaching had to be shelved and new innovative methods of instruction were devised. So was born the online platform of teaching and learning.
As with everything else, e-learning too comes with its challenges and its rewards. The online platform offers the advantage of access anytime, anywhere at the click of a button. Completing activities, assignments and accessing learning material can be achieved anytime and anyplace, thereby affording vast flexibility to the user. Why, you could be holidaying in a different city and still attend your classes everyday! In traditional learning, one has to follow a fixed schedule at a specific place and certainly cannot be physically absent. The familiar and comfortable environment of a regular schedule and a known campus offers comfort to the school goer. The joy of interacting with friends and teachers is what makes going to school or college a memorable experience. This can beat the loneliness that the online platform brings along as a natural consequence of learning from home.
The online platform offers a flexible pace as well as independence. One can work alone and of course the primary source of information is online content. One can fit studies around work schedules and can immediately practice new concepts. Students can always access learning material such as module content, assignments and recorded sessions anytime during the course of their studies. In traditional classroom learning, the pace of teaching and consequently learning, is controlled mainly by the teacher as facilitator. Here, one can work together with classmates and can learn from them too. Social and Life skills are picked up in the interactive environment of the classroom, skills that last a lifetime and are invaluable in learning to interact with the outer world.
