Shimla, May 13, 2020
Ritanjali Hastir
Digital India the Dream of PM Modi under the current light of COVID-19 has seen a new horizon as lockdown compelled all educational institutes to turn to virtual classrooms.
One cannot deny the fact that the most effective learning takes place in the classroom, where one can easily raise your hand, engage in spontaneous discussions with classmates and faculty, turn to the person next to you to ask for clarification, or approach the teacher after class or during school hours to ask questions or exchange viewpoints in a way that practically guarantees an instant response and is not constrained by typing, software interfaces, or waiting for a response.
However, during the present times, e-learning has come up as a knight in shining armor to save the education system whether one may like it or not yet none can afford to ignore it. As shared by Anuja, a Mathematics and IT teacher, “In the online math class, there was almost no meaningful student/teacher or student/student interaction. To equate this type of online learning with a real-world classroom experience is a major stretch. To teach students what they need to know online, we have to talk to them offline.”
On the other hand, we even have teachers who are not Technology savvy and for them, it is a big challenge to make ends meets. As one of the teachers shared Anil (name changed),” For people like me it is a completely new world, where it is baffling to connect to the student. Like many others, I might have mastered my subject but lacking on the technological front my entire confidence is lost and I fail to deliver my best. Each student has a different environment at their homes and with these online classes everything coalescences shaking my confidence to its core.”
Amidst the challenges still, other factors that are troubling teachers are the connectivity as the Himachal populace mostly belongs to rural areas, where connectivity is very less. The efforts being put in by teachers do not hit the bull’s eye.
With the growing popularity in e-learning, one should contemplate on the fact that the ‘E’ should mean more than electronic, especially if we are going to call it e-learning, it should be efficient, and engaging for students.
