When you think of the word education, what is the first word that comes to your mind? Teacher!
Teachers are an extremely important facet of any society as they require to play an extraordinary part in the lives of children during the formative years of their development. We, as students, are being molded in such a way to become a responsible citizen of our country. I personally believe in the fact that quality teachers make the difference—not only in ones’ academic performance but also in their lifetime success. And learning from a passionate, motivating, effective professor will open the doors to a lifetime of opportunity.
Web-based education technology has seen both promising and lackluster results in terms of adoption and course completion rates. The time has come when toddlers and teens have become as much comfortable with touchscreens as they are with crayons and paint brushes. Change is the most evident factor where students have started opting for online degrees instead of going to an institution whether they can afford it or take up a financial loan. Technology has indeed come as a boon, but they even have a fair share of controversies as well. Many fear an out-of-control, antisocial technology that proceeds inexorably and autonomously down deleterious pathways.
Speaking about the internet, we often find ourselves dwelling into hypothetical possibilities of bizarre uses without examining what is actually right. Apart from this, eLearning tools provide educators and students with access to resources they couldn’t have had otherwise, no matter their status or location. For example, a student learning philosophy in England can learn from the top professors a continent away and can do so in their own time while balancing a full-time job and a family at home.
There is no doubt in the fact that technology is advancing, but that doesn’t mean it is flawless. Just like any new, burgeoning innovation, eLearning faces its own challenges. With online courses, it becomes pretty easy for students to access course materials from any place at any time but the biggest flaw in virtual education is that it promotes rote memorization and mediocrity. There is little emphasis on shaping our dreams and passion.
What happens in a traditional classroom? Here, educators will tell you that they need to be on their toes, trying to engage their students at each and every moment. Unfortunately, there are students who never cooperate—whether they might feel bored, zone out, or too focused on the people outside. This lack of engagement turns out to be the real challenge for both teachers as well as students. They can’t hit pause on a teacher and rewind back to the part where they stopped paying attention, which means they’re going to miss out.
Apart from this, student’s individual attention span is also an issue in traditional classrooms. What I exactly mean is that some students feel fatigued right after 50 minutes, while others after 15 minutes, so there is basically no way left to adjust for that in a real-time environment. Despite these problems, it seems magical how we, humans, find the middle way out. Social energy cannot be replaced— not even with AI.
One of the best ways eLearning has tried to mimic the social aspects of a classroom is with tools like message boards, Facebook groups, and sometimes, chatbots. It provides a sense that they aren’t just staring at an empty message board, but they are talking with real people about their homework. Of course, this doesn’t replace talking with peers. If we consider from a teacher’s perspective, it offers eLearning tools give them precisely, clear-cut feedback on how a student is engaging with the material. In addition to this, they can see where students get lost in a lesson and grade assignments with the click of a button. So I don’t find it a threat, in fact, it will turn out to be a rare combination of content and resource management that allows teachers to lead classrooms into the future.