Students retain more information during online lessons'

With Covid-19 necessitating social distancing, online learning has emerged as the best solution to ensure that students don’t lose out on valuable learning hours. We speak to Suman Sharma, PRT, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Baddowal Cantonmet, to know more about online learning and its challenges and benefits.What is online learning?Suman Sharma: Online learning is a learning environment that takes place over the internet. It enables a teacher and a student to set their own learning pace. An online educator makes up for the lack of physical presence by creating a supportive environment in the virtual classroom so that all students feel comfortable to participate.Why online learning is encouraged?Suman Sharma: Firstly, it plays a significant role in helping us adopt the increasingly digitalised world. Secondly, it provides the flexibility of place, class timings and quality contents. Students can attend using their devices (mobile, computer, tablets) from any location with a reliable internet connection. It is a cost-effective way of learning. One can acquire knowledge while staying at home and maintaining social distancing.Is learning online as effective?Suman Sharma: The pandemic has led schools across the world to suspend classroom lessons. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom. As a result, education has changed dramatically with a distinctive rise in e-learning for those who have access to technology. There is evidence that online learning can be more effective in a number of ways. Some research shows that on average students retain 25-60% more material when learning online as compared to only 8-10% in a classroom.The challenges of online learning ?Suman Sharma: Students who don’t have reliable internet connectivity or devices struggle to participate in digital learning. There is a significant gap between those from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds. If the digital gap can be bridged, online learning can go a long way in helping students. Despite the various challenges in online learning, we cannot deny its importance in the present scenario. However, we all have to make necessary efforts to overcome the challenges so that we all may be more benefitted.