By Julia Allegro
I think all of us can say that the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken at least one online class in our school careers so far. Some students thoroughly enjoyed them and others felt the burden and lack of social interaction that can only come from a classroom environment. There is no right or wrong answer to one's attitude toward online learning as we all experienced it a bit differently. Because of this, making a pros and cons list for this event (and almost anything) is dependent on the context of the person. But needless to say I’ve compiled a general list of the advantages and disadvantages of online learning and how people may feel about them.
I’m the kind of person who always likes to receive bad news first, so I will first run down some cons of online learning with you. Again this is dependent on the person, but some people hate self-driven learning. They find they are easily distracted, procrastinate, and lose motivation to work when alone. Many people hate having little to no social interaction on a daily basis and the natural isolating effects that come with self motivated studying. These are all valid concerns that I found myself experiencing during lockdowns as well. One of the biggest obstacles for me was the inability to directly interact with a teacher one on one during class if I had questions or needed help. I find myself to be a visual and kinesthetic learner which means I like being shown pictures, graphs, and using tangible stuff that I can hold in my hand. Online learning made this evidently difficult to achieve which made me adapt to other learning techniques. Other times, obstacles lie not only in the person but the environment they are working in too. Nine out of ten times I remember someone would always have internet and/or device issues when in online calls, which interrupted learning. While online learning, everybody's screen time noticeably increased by large chunks of time. The average school day is about six hours, meaning most students spend about six hours in front of their device daily. This has significant effects on your health says Debra Ruder; author of the Screen Time and the Brain article by Harvard Medical School. In the article, Ruder was talking to Pediatrician Micheal Rich who explained the importance of a good night's sleep while learning, and how excessive screen time affects this. Harvard Medical School researchers have linked blue light emitting devices to disrupting sleeping patterns and the body's distribution of melatonin; a hormone that makes you sleepy. Sleep is essential to forming memories, and without it it seems impossible to learn.
You're probably reading this thinking “Wow Julia! You just wrote a big paragraph on how online learning is so bad. How could there possibly be any positive effects to this?”. As I stand by the science and facts that indicate too much screen time is not good for you, this can be said about extreme amounts of almost anything. Life is all about learning to balance yourself and I have experienced some of the positive effects of online learning myself. I mentioned self driven work as a con above, but for someone like me I found it to be very beneficial at times. As someone who thrives working in quiet, familiar, and clean environments, sometimes working at my desk in my room is a great option to optimize productivity. The same can be said about limited social interaction, oftentimes trying to get work done in class is difficult as there is constant conversation around you. So, alone time can definitely be beneficial. Many people also enjoy online learning as they can work at their own pace on assignments and lessons. For example, something I often did during my online schooling was work for an hour or two, then take a break, and go for a walk. This increased my productivity and avoided the burn out that comes with working long hours, and is something that would not be possible in an in-person learning environment. Online learning is also cost effective as consuming factors such as gas required for transportation and school uniforms are suddenly taken out of the equation. According to Jay Goldberg’s, Here's the Truth About Ontario's Education Spending, Ontario spends about $14,000 per student annually on education. That is a significant sum of money that can be now used to better the student and/or their environment elsewhere. Online learning is extremely convenient, which is why it is often so attractive to students. You can pull out your laptop anywhere and pick up where you left off. With that, there are also hundreds of available courses across the internet to learn from that can positively impact learning where there might not be an option to do so in in-person learning.
At this point it should be clear that there are limitless preferences to online learning and its effectiveness varies significantly on the individual. As mentioned, many of us have likely gone through online learning before and have some understanding of our preference towards learning environments. If you are thinking about making the decision sometime in the future or maybe just looking for a reference point, hopefully you now have a better understanding of the effects online learning may pose and what to think about when making the decision of whether or not to learn from home.
Works Cited
Goldberg, Jay. “Here’s the Truth About Ontario’s Education Spending.” Canadians Taxpayers Federation, 22 Aug. 2023, https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/here%E2%80%99s-the-truth-about-ontario%E2%80%99s-education-spending#:~:text=Ontario%20spends%20%241%2C000%20more%20per,is%20over%20%2414%2C000%20per%20year.
“Screen Time and the Brain.” Harvard Medical School, 19 June 2019, hms.harvard.edu/news/screen-time-brain.
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