The year 2020 will surely go down in history as one of the most tumultuous and disruptive times in recent memory. The whole world continues to be rocked by the calamity of COVID-19, and one sector that received a particularly heavy shaking-up is education.
As schools, colleges, training centres across the world started to shut down to prevent the spread of the disease, the world was very suddenly forced to regard online education as the new mainstream. It had previously remained somewhat on the fringes of the education sector, not yet ready to prove itself as worthy of a mainstream position.
These days, though, things are different. What’s more, it’s a good thing in many ways! Today we’re exploring several of the greatest benefits of online learning.
Benefit 1: Safety
First and foremost, it must be said that in light of recommendations from the WHO, United States CDC, and the National Health Service in the UK, creating some distance has benefited our physical health. Far from just COVID-19, online learning protects all students and teachers from the inevitable “petri dish” effect that many classrooms have.
Benefit 2: Logistics
Whether you’re going to class yourself, or to teach, or to drop your kids off at their school or weekend classes, the journeys there and back add more cost (and stress) to the activity. Petrol is around ₤1.14 a litre, you know. Online learning allows everyone to streamline their time much more effectively — from afternoon class, to dinner, to relaxing, to bedtime, easy! — and get more fun and productivity into each day.
Benefit 3: Paper
Studying generally requires a great deal of paper. An article claimed that the average office worker uses 20 reams of paper annually, on average. That’s 10,000 sheets! How much do you suppose we use for all those paper-based learning materials? There are textbooks, note books, exercise books, worksheets, revision cards, post-its…the list goes on. Moving the entire experience online cuts paper use dramatically.
Benefit 4: Bulk
Besides the environmental impacts of all that paper, there’s also the physical aspect. Books are heavy, and take up valuable space in our homes. The more we learn, the more we have to carry around or pile up on our bookshelves. With online classrooms, we can store all our materials in the cloud, reducing the physical load we have to bear. This brings us neatly to the final benefit.
Benefit 5: Convenience
For educators, online learning means being able to store your materials handily in the cloud, allowing you to access it from any device to which you can log in. Students enjoy the same benefits, reducing the risk of classes being disrupted by kids “forgetting” their books, homework or other necessary materials. Without travelling overseas, students can join online courses from global universities and can benefit from learning at their own pace. International student scholaships are available, even if the mode of delivery is online.
Online is Here – Get Used to It
The way the world is moving at this time suggests very strongly that the current growth of online learning is anything but a fad. Even as the disease subsides in some regions (e.g. China, South Korea), hygiene-concerned parents are favouring online instruction where possible. It isn’t going to fully take the place of the bricks-and-mortar school any time soon, but it has firmly gained its place in the mainstream, and doesn’t look like it’s going to budge.