On a Chinese website, I saw two parents arguing: one was praising video classes for their convenience, but the other was complaining that her son had become addicted to online games ever since virtual school began.

As technology advances, knowledge is more frequently delivered through the Internet and a considerable portion of studying is now carried out online. Online learning overcomes boundaries regarding students’ location, time, and financial state, producing educational opportunities. However, it often dilutes the quality of education.

Online learning saves time. In a case study about a group of Pakistani medical students’ online learning experiences, teachers reported that “students had become self-directed learners and they learned asynchronously at any time in a day,” and students commented that online learning was “saving the traveling time to attend class as well as the waiting time between class as a result of a scattered timetable.” Online resources eliminate the necessity for students and faculty to meet at a specific time and place and allow flexibility. That saves time otherwise spent on communication, arrangement, and travel.

Online learning unlocks geographical limitations. Online sessions and video recordings are much more accessible than offline classes. Students can go beyond their school to find more advanced classes on websites such as EdX and MIT-Online to satisfy their interests, without actually needing to go to the university that records those courses; more and more colleges are opening online libraries, and various academic websites are easy to access on web browsers, allowing students from all around the world to obtain the newest and most recognized forms of knowledge without the need to walk into a great library. As researchers from a survey that gathered feedback from online MBA students concluded, about 70% of the participants rated the experience as rewarding, and they highlighted geographic flexibility.

Online learning breaks financial barriers. Traditionally, only students with the ability to pay tuition and housing fees, or to afford student loans, can enjoy classes and acquire knowledge. Many families cannot afford an offline degree. The average global household income is $12,235 per year, but the average tuition of a US graduate school is $21,730, which means the majority of families do not have access to these universities without loans or aid. Online courses, however, are often almost free to take and people do not need to pay high prices to become educated. There is no or little cost to download a PDF of a textbook or a series of videos, even to understand sophisticated concepts such as nuclear fusion. Starting in the 21st century, thousands of people have chosen online programs to study and advance their career skills, and they can learn regardless of financial obstacles.

While bringing convenience, online classes also have drawbacks – academic integrity is reduced by online learning. Both the learning experience and learning efficiency are decreased. Nevertheless, these problems can be solved by countermeasures.

Online classes often fail to create an interactive learning environment. A student engaging in online classes does not have access to face-to-face interactions, and that reduces the enthusiasm for participation and the effectiveness of communication. It is hard for teachers to see if students follow by observing the class atmosphere, or for students to discuss with each other and enhance understanding. Group work is also limited, since students cannot cooperate hand-to-hand. Thus, a learning process in which the student is isolated from classmates and teachers is not likely to be enjoyable or highly productive.

The online learning process cannot guarantee high academic quality. Particularly for younger generations, concentration is a great obstacle. As there aren’t any direct interactions, it can be hard for young kids to focus on the content delivered; multiple distractions like electronic games, websites, and video platforms worsen this situation. Children are easily drawn from classes to the attractive things on their electronic devices. Self-reported data shows that a low level of concentration is negatively linked to an understanding of knowledge. What’s more, through an online approach, it is hard for a teacher to find out whether a student is concentrating. With live online sessions, the teacher can ask students to turn on their cameras and microphones to engage and can occasionally assess the students’ states – better than never. However, for independent tasks or video classes, the teacher has no idea whether a student has done the homework by him/herself or gained knowledge from a class. Therefore, the teacher cannot guarantee how much students are taking away from the class, nor can he/she make improvements based on students’ learning outcomes.

Online learning resources, though abundant, do not guarantee their level of accuracy. It is doubtful whether a persuasive unofficial online article can contain useful information, yet many students and adults believe what they read. Multiple attention-seeking passages are titled with emotion-triggering words such as “Shocking!” or “someone finally admits!” and use loose logic loops to prove something that even the author does not believe, to seek readers and fans. When researching a problem, people may not want to think deeply, go to direct sources, or read papers. Therefore, they might just open one of those attention-seeking articles and accept a biased conclusion. Since the Internet makes the spread of information much faster, biased information is more likely to spread online than offline. Online resources can even become a tool for political campaigns or social rumors.

Society cannot deny a learning approach that is convenient and will boost economic opportunities, yet the problem with academic integrity will need awareness-raising and legal solutions. Luckily, people are creatively trying to solve this problem.

Companies that host online classroom applications are trying innovative ways to regain high-quality online learning experiences. Take ClassIn as an example. In a ClassIn classroom, the teacher has the authority to download warm-up games for each student, assign the right to draw on a shared board, and give blackboards or quizzes to each student and collect them. This imitates the real classroom, where students can talk, answer questions, and share thoughts on the blackboard in front of the classroom. Fancy online tools might be attractive enough for young kids to pay attention to class content. Creativity in online functions can help students gain an interesting and full-attention learning experience.

Another approach to assist online learning and increase learning efficiency is supervision. Evolutionarily, our brain is not developed to pay long-term attention to a fixed electronic screen. This is especially true for children, due to the fact that their natural attention span is relatively low. Online learning can be torture as learners struggle to focus under various temptations and tiredness. In a survey about children’s remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, 23.8% of parents reported that their children had difficulty staying on task. With a tidy environment and proper supervision, however, students are more likely to concentrate. In the survey mentioned above, 58.2% of parents reported that the most frequently used strategy is related to routines and schedules. Parents can spend a little time each day to see how their child’s online learning is going, and tuition organizations can hold learning groups to support and supervise each other. Also, offline learning lounges are a good place to find a learning atmosphere. Still, more proper and formal supervision tools that can be carried out cheaply need to be created.

The issue of questionable online learning resources might be solved by legislation. Learning resources might be forced to be examined before they are posted on official learning media, so as to ensure their quality.

The prevalence of online learning is an unavoidable result of technology development and the COVID-19 pandemic. It allows students to learn more conveniently and gives many more individuals an opportunity to learn, but it also raises concerns about the quality and efficiency of learning. Innovation, supervision, and legislation are needed to adopt online learning fully into our lives.

Sources:

1.K.Mukhtar et al. Advantages, Limitations, and Recommendations For Online Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic Era. Pakistan Medical Science, 36(COVID19-S4):S27-S31. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.COVID19-S4.2785

2.K.Kim, S.Liu, C.Bonk. Online MBA Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning: Benefits, Challenges, and Suggestions. The Internet and Higher Education, Volume 8, Issue 4, pp.335-344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2005.09.005

3.Roy, Amy K.,Breaux, Rosanna,Sciberras, Emma,Patel, Pooja,Ferrara, Erica,Shroff, Delshad M.,Cash, Annah R.,Dvorsky, Melissa R.,Langberg, Joshua M.,Quach, Jon,Melvin, Glenn,Jackson, Anna,Becker, Stephen P. A preliminary examination of key strategies, challenges, and benefits of remote learning expressed by parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. School Psychology, Vol 37(2), pp.147-159. Available at: https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2022-42199-001