How most students transitioned into online classes
Due to the pandemic, students had to change their learning and study habits in March 2020. The pandemic not only affected travel, families, and businesses worldwide but also affected students’ education. Students and teachers had to make transitions changing how they run schools with everyone’s safety in mind.
Offline study Pros
1: Communication
Communication between students and teachers is easy to accomplish when studying offline. On the other hand, during an online class, if a student has a question about an assignment or upcoming projects, you would have to email the teacher and await a response. Some teachers can respond quickly within a few hours, but others could take longer than others, being able to respond as long as a few days. There is always the method of asking a teacher a question during an online meeting, and while this can be effective, it may be difficult to hear or understand teachers due to the following issues:
Technical issues
When studying online, anyone could run into technical difficulties, halting classes. Some examples include the following:
- Wifi disconnections
- Having trouble listening due to lag on Zoom, discord, or Skype calls
- Laptops running out of battery
- Power outages
- School websites crashing
These are only to name a few examples. Unfortunately, many students have run into more examples than these.
2: Discipline
During our classes studying online, I’m sure many students could agree that it felt more stress-free during a lecture or class. Here is a list of things students could get distracted by:
- Movies or TV shows
- Video games
- Texting
- Social media
- Family
Due to these examples, offline classes encouraged students to be on top of everything. It allowed fewer distractions to be involved. The ones most prone to being distracted are younger children in elementary school.
Online classes: Pros
1: Cheaper
Whether you are travelling to school by bus, car, or even walking, offline school will always guarantee a student spending money to get to school, and includes lots of examples:
- Gas
- Bus passes
- Pay for parking
2: Easy access to lessons and notes
With the power of technology created today, accessing lectures through school websites has never been easier. Not only that, but it is easy to organize for the following reasons:
- Access your teacher’s notes through PowerPoint, get straightforward answers
- Access to your teacher’s lectures for clarification
- Typing notes tends to be faster than writing notes
- Typing notes can also be much neater than handwriting
3: Less time commuting
Not only is money an issue when travelling to school, but students have to travel to their schools a lot of time. Here are some ways students would use up most of their time:
- Busses or cars stuck in traffic
- Waking up earlier and arriving home later than usual
- Intense weather
- Have trouble finding parking
4: Using their time better
While studying online, any student could use up their time to sleep in more, avoid traffic, and not walk on days that are too rainy, hot or snowy. If students have an early morning class at 8:30 am, they could just roll out of bed, quickly wash up, and make their favourite morning beverage or breakfast. Shortly after, you could get into a call immediately and not worry about time management.
Important notice for international students studying online
To students who plan on going to PGWP, if you intend to take online courses, there are some vital things to think about. For details, please refer to the following IRCC links:
Post-graduation work permit eligibility requirements – Canada.ca
Temporary policy changes to the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program (PGWPP) – Canada.ca
All in all, what do you think?
The pandemic has existed for a few years. With transitioning back to offline classes, our experiences studying online could be a lesson if another pandemic like this ever happens again!
Stay safe out there!
