Myunghee Yoon
Prof. Kyle Brebner
IERW (04)
04 December 2015
The Limits of Online Classes
We are living in the 21st century, the digital era. By
recognizing the changed conditions of this age, many people claim that we have
to change our education system. One of the important issues discussed about
education development is that online classes should be offered to students. In
fact, many universities have already offered online courses, and it is even
possible to get a degree without ever visiting the campus. However, if we truly
take care of students, we should not leave students to take all their classes
online. Students should not take all their classes online because there are a
lot of obstacles that disturb studies when they take online classes, and
students can get many important things in the campus life.
When we take online classes, there are so many things
that disturb our studies. Because of the nature of online classes, we have to
study alone in a private space like home when we take online classes. At home,
there are many distractions such as television, computers, smartphones, magazines,
among others. In addition, when you take online classes, your younger sister
might ask you to play with her, or all your family members might sit in the
living room chatting about their day without you. Also, you may nod off during
study hour. All these distractions interrupt your concentration. While some
people may think that students can easily endure these trivial distractions if
they have a will, many experts agree that effective learning only takes place
in a classroom with a teacher who can help students to focus on the lessons. Despite
this expert opinion, some people still say that even if students don’t take
online classes, these distractions still exist when students do their homework
or study for a test after school. However, if they considered that in school
classes, students get feedback continuously from their teachers in a way that
teachers check students’ homework and give students a good scolding when
students did not study hard enough, they would see that many distractions,
which interrupt students concentration in online classes, do not matter in
school classes. According to an article in UNN, a newspaper run by Korean
universities, many students stopped taking online classes because they had a
difficulty studying at home without teachers. It shows that we cannot expect
all students to be able to study well through the Internet regardless of their
environments.
Another reason students should not take all their
classes online is that there are many other important advantages besides study,
which students cannot get from online classes. Unlike online classes where
students have to study alone, school classes require students to gather at the classroom
and study together. So, students can help each other when they cannot
understand what they learned in the class. At the same time, they compete with
each other. All these things generate a significant synergy effect. In other
words, cooperating and competing with each other in the classroom helps
students study more efficiently and improve their abilities to understand the
contents of the class. In addition, universities do not just offer classes. They
also offer great opportunities to learn about society. For example, most
students participate in club activities such as music band and photography
club. Also, some students are members of school activities like student
council. Through these activities, students can learn valuable life skills such
as self-responsibility, independence, and relationships between people.
However, we cannot expect these positive effects in online classes. Although
online classes may offer the opportunity to study with a group of friends
through discussion forums, there is a limit to teaching students enough real
life skills through online classes, which are nothing more than the virtual
reality. For these reasons, it is clear that it is difficult to teach students
everything that is a necessary part of life through the internet.
In conclusion, we should not let students take all their
classes online because there are many distractions when they take online
classes, and there are many important things that can get from school but cannot
get through the internet. Of course, in the digital era, it is an undeniable
fact that e-learning is indispensable for the development of education.
However, it is also true that there are still many problems with online
classes. So, we have to complement them before we fully accept online classes. It
does not mean that we can ignore the importance of e-learning. It just means we
are in a time of transition, so we should be careful not to rush to ignore the
current education system. The best way to improve education is to maintain
balance and harmony between school classes and online classes. For example, if
schools record the classes and upload it onto the Internet while maintaining
school classes, students can review what they learned in the school anytime,
anywhere, and they still get many advantages like learning life skills in the
campus life. No matter how advanced our technology becomes, the fact that both
methods are needed will not change.
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기