AES03 The Emergence of Online Learning

The coronavirus pandemic that’s been affecting us this past year and a half has changed a lot about our lives, almost every established system has been forced to adapt to this new normal. One of the most important system that underwent change was of course, education.

Even before the pandemic, I was doing most of my studies and learning online through courses and learning platforms provided by numerous universities across the globe, and at first online learning was seen as a bit of an oddity, but due to the pandemic almost every school and college had to transform their curriculum to fully online, and I think it’s fair to say that it has not been an easy transition for the most of them. Old universities with barely functioning websites are now forced to provide an online learning experience for their students.

Suddenly my courses which has been fully designed for an online experience from the start seemed to offer a far better learning experience than what my friends in university are going through. With their generally old professors unequipped to teach a class through zoom for example, they have resorted to giving their students more assignments and homework to make up for the lack of the usual classroom routine.

This overcompensation by giving students more work has naturally led to a worse and more stressful learning environments for students, even if they are learning from the comforts of their own homes. This is not the case for everyone of course, some universities have transitioned more smoothly than others, and do provide their students with quality online education. I hope this pandemic has opened the eyes of the established educational foundations, to see that progress is inevitable, that we need to change along with the times and the opportunities that technology has provided for us.