Hi
Hope everyone is staying safe. This week we have Ryan sharing different perspectives on modes of delivering education – online education and attending school in person. There is a lot of food for thought, hope you enjoy reading it.
The rush in adapting to virtual learning for students is no doubt due to the Pandemic. We must appreciate that our teachers adopted to embracing new technology to ensure students never stop learning. So please do your part and be disciplined in your studies as you would be when you attend school. Few things you could adopt is to be ready to start your zoom class at least 10 mins before class time, have your books and other stationery items near you, charge your tabs /phones (or remind your mom and dad to do so),eat before class and only during breaks given as if you would do in the school premises, have a bottle of water near you etc.
Due to the spread of COVID-19, and to ensure the safety of each one of you, we may need to embrace online learning for some more time. Whatever the mode used, please Never Stop Learning!!
Stay safe and keep reading and writing!
Regards,
Aunty Sesh
Which is better, Online Education or Physical School?
by Ryan Sadhil De Silva
Humanity has done astounding things. For example, when the entire world was driven to a standstill by the outbreak of COVID-19, the only thing that allowed us to keep going was technology, and a specific form of technology too, online school. What is online school though? Well, it is basically the same as physical school as in both situations a teacher is teaching a class of students’ different lessons from a subject, but in online school all of the students as well as the teacher are far apart from each other but can still see each other on a computer screen. In physical school on the other hand, there is no difference except that everyone is together. The question that many of us have been asking is which of these methods of education is better. The only problem with this question is that there has not yet been a reasonable answer for it, but people still want to find out what it is.
To find the answer to this baffling question, we need to go through the facts. Firstly, online education can be quite efficient, as it can be used anytime, during a pandemic, when you are abroad, or even during casual times, since online school has proved itself to be quite safe and efficient, for example, if you are having a class on your phone, your meetings are portable! There are still a few downsides to online education though, one being even though it is quite efficient to a certain extent, many online meeting software are paid, including zoom, where you have to pay in order to have a meeting for longer than 40 minutes. Also, in some schools, the children are allowed to keep their cameras off, which means most of the time, the teachers will be having no idea what the children are doing. This means many of the students are able to skip classes or just stay in them without actually learning anything, which wouldn’t have happened in physical school. But there is also another great disadvantage, children have to be separated from their friends and lose any connection they have with the outside world, since the online educational method doesn’t greatly encourage honest face to face communication, which puts the educational sector at a great risk of losing contact with the students. Being a student myself, I have witnessed many students deemed talkative, smart and/or friendly have stopped talking and participating completely, which could prove to be a big concern.
Now, we must move on to the perks and disadvantages of being in a physical school environment. Number one, students must speak, as they are given no other choice but to do so when addressed by the teacher. Second, there is increased communication amongst students, and they become more likely to observe and learn, instead of blankly staring at a digital screen as knowledge drains out of their heads, as they actually listen to the teacher and acknowledge what he/she says unlike in online school. Last, but not least, there is no chance of children slacking off or skipping classes as they will be carefully supervised all the while completing their assigned work.
For the final decision, to choose whether physical school is better than online school. In my opinion, if it is able to occur normally, physical school is the overall better way for educational activities to take place, as even though online school is more efficient and safer, efficiency is always less useful when actually trying to get the job done well. The traditional methods are better when it comes to teaching, for now, but who knows? Maybe one day in the future a school will be built where all the students and teachers are holograms working or studying from home, which would be a good mixture of efficiency, safety and quality of education. But for now, we would have to make do with what we already have, and never take anything for granted.\
Ryan Sadhil De Silva
Lyceum International School, Nugegoda
Grade – 8
Age – 13
