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How can technology improve education?
5 years agoMaybe some of you are still in school, probably most of you have already finished. How would you compare learning on Verbling to learning in school? In what ways is it better/worse?
Having taught online for many years now, I of course see the benefits of teaching and learning online. Features like easy file sharing, editing, notes, flashcard creation and video recording make the learning process easier and in many ways more effective. This is without mentioning the savings in time (not having to commute to class), money (having more affordable tuition rates) and flexibility (easy rescheduling). However, there are many aspects that we miss out on in the online classroom.
One is audio and video quality. Although most of the time good audio and video quality can be had there are sometimes many factors to consider. For example students from certain countries may have to deal with firewalls that slow down their connection. Internet providers can have issues with their connection. Suddenly a student's headset could fail leaving them unable to participate in the lesson. All of these things don't happen in a face-to-face classroom where the focus can be all on learning instead of technical issues that may arise.
Another is the amount of focus students have in a traditional classroom environment, not all students are disciplined enough to turn of their phones during an online lesson, sometimes distractions like phone calls or even physical visitors can disturb the learning process.
All in all though an an online and offline teacher I feel the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of online learning and teaching. What are your thoughts? Is online study/teaching you first choice, second choice or only choice? Can you think of any pros/cons that I didn't mention?
Looking forward to the discussion! :)
