Online Education Experiences During COVID Pandemic

Good/Bad/Ugly COVID Education Experiences

With the revolution of technology, it was a vision that in future everything would turn into online system. The digital school of thought predicted that they would convert traditional education into distance learning in future. Many technology were introduced in the field of distance learning and teaching. It was predicted that online learning and teaching would replace traditional way of learning and teaching. But to some extent it was a supportive process. As no one was ready to rely on this type of education as a whole.

If we talk about Pakistan, many universities started this online teaching and learning process. But a fear always remained in the mind that there is no substitute of tradition way of imparting education. In short, there is no substitute of traditional class rooms. The interaction between a teacher and a learner was must and essential.

But COVID pandemic changed the whole scenario. During lockdown, universities, schools and colleges were totally closed down. The countries had to shift education process totally online but with a lot of experiences- some good and some bad and ugly. Now the online education got compulsory and essential and it was beyond the choice.

The good thing is that world is continuing the process of education to compensate the loss of traditional teaching. The students and teachers got secured during this process. The student when sitting at home went on learning. Some used Google meet and some used Zoom. So, in this way, world escaped the decline and demise of education. Experts are still working on this online process of education so that they might more facilitate both the teachers and the student on equal footing.

As we have initially said that there is no substitute of traditional way of education. But during this pandemic the world has no other option. Changes are being made rapidly to facilitate this online process but all does not happen overnight, it will take some time. But there is no doubt that during this COVID pandemic online education has made up many deficiency in education field.

Online education is passive way, it is slow and time taking way of learning and teaching. There are many deficiency in this system. The biggest problem that world faced that they were not fully ready for it. Teachers were not trained to impart education online. On the other side the learners were not ready and mostly not used to this distance education system. We cannot say that it was 100 percent ok. Online teaching is a creative work so teacher lacked this creativity. This is why the other side or behind the camera sitting children did not show interest in this type of education.

In a traditional way of teaching, a teacher make a direct interaction with the students. He gives them many assignments to prepare as a home work. The teacher checks these assignment before the students and correct them directly. But bad thing occurred that in online system of education it was neglected totally. So the students missed creativity and became a passive learner.

Teacher is at one place while the students are sitting at different places. All cameras not working well, the teachers are unable to watch all the activities of the students. Possibility is that a student may turn off the camera and mic and goes outside or indulge in other activities like eating, laughing and playing.

Online education depends on many other components like laptop, nice flow of electricity, good quality camera and mic. If one component is not working well, the whole system collapses. These type of problem faced mostly like poor and developing countries. Our country Pakistan faced this problem the most.

If we become much open minded and say that to some extent online teaching and learning remained very successful but we cannot say that online exams system remained very successful. Schools, colleges and universities had to face many problem in conducting online exams. It is thought that SEB: Safe Exams Browser is the most reliable software over the world for conducting online exams, we are living in the world of fools.

Summing up the discussion, we can say that in the developed countries this system remained successful but in the poor and developing countries it faced a lot of problems.