'Online Education' these two words didn't sound "possible" just a decade ago. This year, as the outside world became ravaged by the pandemic, education has gone virtual. Professors giving lectures on the video conference app, students reading out PDF materials, submitting assignments online... Yes! we are officially in a world where e-learning is not only just a possibility, its the only way.
In February this year, when COVID-19 overhauled the whole world by off-guard, the most vulnerable part of the society needed to stay indoors. Yet, what's about there education? Could an online variety of learning serve the purpose? After almost five months later, we can surely say education is possible in any mode you want, as long as there are proficient infrastructures.
For the first and second world countries like Europe and America, education switched to the online mode from the day-1 of the lockdown. G Suite, developed by Google solely to actualize the dream of e-learning, saw a user jump of 30 million in just a few months. Google Classroom is practically the best in the business as it presents a classroom-like environment for both the students and the teachers, free of cost. Professor can send out notes in PDF format, attach time-limited assignments for the students.
Though, the situation is not the same for the rest of the world, mainly the third world countries, where the infrastructure is under-developed. In India, 40% of the school students are yet to taste the features of online education. So, where the facilities are not sufficiently available for everyone, there is a need for online learning to remain as a substitute for the original medium.
The best part that makes it futuristic is that online education restricts neither the teacher nor the students to be present at the same place. In some of the cases, the teacher can pre-record his/her classes those the students can watch it in their allotted time.
So, what to makes Online Education 'revolutionary'? The main difference between the traditional classes and online classes is the most prominent reason we can say that this is the future. In any classes (except very few), teaching-learning doesn't go hand in hand for all the students. Some students in the class lag, grasp things a little bit slower than his/ her classmate. So, as there is no recording of the lecture is readily available to that student in the traditional medium, there is a high chance that the student is left behind. That is just the opposite in the case of online education. The student can go through the online lectures anytime they want as the class recordings are stored.
This pandemic has cursed us in many ways. It claimed many innocent lives, ravaged the economic system in many countries, but there are a few good things are highlighted. Online Education is one of them. The functionality of the modern world has enabled us to operate from a remote distance, which is valid for education as well. Day by day online education system will take over the traditional classes. Soon, what we have experienced in our school/ college days will only become "In our days..." story to tell our grandchildren.
