Challenge online study

It’s the first-ever longest lockdown in India. While we are struggling to adjust to the changes coming our way, I feel like a juggler managing and balancing all the tasks, properties with equal attention. It’s the month of May and Academic New Year peeps around the corner. We do not yet have a clear idea of how it’s going to be. Central board schools have already started their webinars, video calls, etc. Some schools have started sending the videos to parents so that they get the task /studies completed from their children. Before we conclude if it’s a good way or a better way of studying, let us understand it’s the need of this hour. There is no other option left than online studies.

This is the system applied to all age groups starting from kinder garden to secondary classes. Incorporates we always practiced webinars and video conferencing but never thought it would be a method of child studies also. We always struggled to keep children away from the magnetic gadget life but seems we will have to stop now as that’s the only tool left. After cursing the invention of gadgets at times now we welcome it and hand over the same to kids.

This is going to be difficult, for students, as well as teachers. Both are used to study face to face or say in person, which cannot be replaced by any other method. Earlier the place was different like classes were conducted in open, which are conducted in closed shed premises called schools.  

Well, we already had some experience in online studies like the cd’s materials available online for various courses. Many new online learning and teaching platforms are available. That’s the boon for working professionals who wish to upgrade or learn as well as for them who would like to teach and share their knowledge. It’s also a new source of income.

Online study has its own advantage and disadvantages.

It is government norms for online education that a parent should be sitting along with the kids till class four. It will take time for children to get over and understand this new method of learning. Apart from education schools is all about friends and other activities like sports etc. The online study would be skipping this for the moment.

Some students are slow learners and take time to understand; at times they need special attention or repetitive explanation. Here parents would come in the picture to make the child understand the concept.

There would less or no more bunking.

Parents with two kids, attending online classes at the same time would be a problematic situation or unavailability of resources like gadget or network issue may be a hindrance in the flow of study. Continuity may also suffer.

I had a brief discussion on this with some of my friends, especially some who are teachers, tutors, and parents to understand their views and errors they are facing. If any of you are facing the problem mentioned in the above point, please talk to the schools or teachers they can provide you the link to the specific lecture, wherein you can review it for better understanding.

Teachers are also finding the system short as they are also used to connect with the children, the responses and the face reading would have limitations. Our teachers could easily make out if the student understood the concept or not by looking at their faces. There were chances of re explanation when taught face to face.

Also, did we realize that’s its much testing time for them, they know they are being watched by not only students but parents beside them? This makes their job more difficult. No matter how skilled a doctor you are conducting surgery on your loved one is always a challenge, it’s always a challenge if someone is judging you based on your performance.

The total onus of studies lies more on students than anyone else. Here we are talking about primary kids (Jkg to 4th), as working professionals or secondary kids can find it a bit easy.

We had everything earlier like some online apps like Vedanta, byju’s, but in order to keep our children away from gadgets, we never surfed them, now its time to know more about such sites.

I had earlier shared in one of my blogs (https://meshirish.blogspot.com/2020/05/children-and-internet-safety.html) about the care to be taken when your child is studying online where he has the chance to explore and know anything and everything.

We will have to be extra careful and take this mode of study in ease. Children may enjoy or just may get frustrated with the online studies as they do not move out meet their friends, share Tiffin’s, and have fun which they actually have in school. It will be our duty to make them understand the situation the world is going through.

This is a matter of a year or so, but accepting the challenge and making changes in lifestyle for betterment is a must. As change is the only constant…..

(A word of concern: We are not aware of the book stores have books as due to lockdown the print industry was also closed. Let us share our books with someone who is unable to reach out to the stores or is unable to buy them due to the unavailability of money. Use second-hand books)