In this 21
st century, where there is a huge penetration of internet among people of different strata, learning has transcended the boundaries of classrooms. Especially in the developing countries like India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil etc. digital learning is spreading like wildfire among the students.
 |
| Source: Google Images |
Now, the question arises if it is possible for virtual learning to supersede the classroom learning? I guess yes. I don't want to
sound like some ageing pollyanna who just want to pretend all is sweetness and light. As we can see, the world is moving very fast and there is a boom in population all over the world but there is a paucity of quality teachers in the world. Especially in developing countries teacher to student ratio is pathetic. In this condition of darkness, there seems to be a source of light called 'internet' which seems to be the elixir for this particular problem.
This concept is not new at all, there are many online learning websites like Topper Learning, Meritnation etc for school levels and MIT OpenCourseWare, edx, NPTEL, ALISON etc. for college level students. Some of the mentioned sites also provide certificates to the successful candidates who complete the courses. But the thing is, this is known to limited students who already have good faculties and facilities, in actual the students who are in its real need of this courses are unaware of it, or it is inaccessible to them due to many reasons like unavailability of internet, computer, time (since their time gets wasted in unproductive learning).
Considering above, I think apart from just providing the resources, it is also the responsibility of the government and responsible organizations to help every student its access through some mechanism. This may not be the need of the hour for good educational institute but certainly it is a must for other institutions. Scrapping the unproductive learning with the help of internet can benefit a lot to the students.
One way of implementing it could be, course wise regular classes from the internet ( videos of the whole courses can be downloaded or played online in schools). In colleges, the dearth of professors can be filled by video lectures online in the campus. By this way problem of lack of teachers can be solved.It will also not affect peer to peer learning as students will learn together in the classroom.What do you think? Share your views in comment section.