guwahati (The Stellar News): Since the outbreak of Covid19 pandemic the learning process has completely changed the entire education system from University to the school level. The education system transformed from offline to online teaching. Teachers are still struggling to make way out to engage their students in online teaching. The class room system of teaching turned to a stalemate position due to shut down of educational institutions across the world and at present, over 1.2 billion children are out of the class room. The dramatic changes will raise e-learning process whereby teaching is undertaken on digital platform. Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information and take less time in teaching process due to corona virus. It is very much true that the rate of Covid -19 is variable worldwide but as per record 1.2 billion children in 186 countries have been affected due to pandemic. With the sudden shift of class room teaching to online teaching across the globe raises question whether this process would continue in post pandemic days and what would be the impact of entire education system in near future.
Before the pandemic, the high growth and adaption of technology investments reaching $ 18.66 billion in 2019 and the online teaching might reach $350 billion in 2025 by using virtual tutoring, language apps, video conferencing or introduction of learning software etc. The using of such medium has shown a significant effect after the outbreak of corona virus. Online teaching had a significant impact as soon as class room teaching abruptly collapsed due to the pandemic and was bound to establish another platform of e-learning process. It is to be mentioned that a platform like BYJU’s, a Bengaluru-based educational technology and online tutoring founded in 2011, is now the world’s most highly valued Edtech Company. According to Mrinal Mohit, the company’s chief operating officer, since the announcement of free live classes on its Think and Learn app, BYJU has observed a 200% increase in number of new students using this app and its product. A Singapore based collaborative company known as ‘Lark’ which is developed by Byte Dance as an internal tool to meet its own exceptional growth, began offering teachers and students unlimited video conferencing time, auto translation capabilities and project works amongst other features. To work very quickly and in time of crisis, Lark ramped up its global server infrastructures and engineering capabilities to ensure reliable connectivity. According to CEO, Chen Hang of Ding Talk and Alibaba’s learning solution said, ‘To support large scale renote work, the platform tapped Alibaba cloud to deploy more than 100,000 new cloud servers in just two hour last month setting a new record for rapid capacity expansion.’
Besides these, some collaborative system has evolved to minimize the education system like between The Los Angles United school District and PBS So cal/ KCET to offer local educational broadcast with separate channels focused in different age group of digital options. In UK also they are telecasting some programmes on educational sectors along with some playing tools for kids through some celebrities like footballer Sergio Aguero. The same trend could have been followed in India through some local channels for the greater interest of students. It is a matter of concern for the future trend of learning system under the preview of the switch over from traditional system to online system which is an unplanned and rapid due to novel corona virus, yet with lack of proper training, insufficient bandwidth and as a result unconductive to sustain growth. On the other hand, someone believes that the new trend of education system will emerge with significant benefit. According to Wang Tao, Vice President of Tencent cloud and Vice President Tencent education express as – “We believe that integration of information technology in education will be further accelerated and that online education will eventually become an integral component of school education.”
There are some successful stories regarding the new online system of education. The example is – Zhejiong University which manages to get more than 5000 courses online two weeks in to the transition using ‘Ding Talk ZJU’. Another example is the Imperial college of London, who has started offering a course on the Science of corona virus and that class is very much popular than ever before. The teaching system is much more beneficial through Lark as admitted by professor Amjad , University of Jordan and he says – “It has changed the way of teaching. It enables me to reach out to my students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video meetings voting and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. My students also find it is easier to communicate on lark. I will notice to Lark even after corona virus. I believe traditional offline and e-learning can go hand by hand”. There must be some challenges which emerges during this unplanned situation, many students are not habituated of using computer as well as accessible of an android mobile which creates a hindrance in e-learning process especially here in India but the same procedure has been properly used by advanced countries.
The online system of teaching has started all on a sudden due to the pandemic and there are certain evidences that this type of teaching is much more effective in several occasions. In this regard research are carried out which explain that students retain 25-60% more material in online teaching than the class room teaching. This is because of the students being able to learn faster in online, e-learning requires 40-60% less time than the traditional class room settings. The students can learn at their own place or accelerating through concepts as they choose. It is also worth mentioning that effectiveness of online learning may vary according to their age group depending upon the tools. As the learning process has to be depend upon a new kind of technology which is progressing as well as crucial also. According to BYJU’s Mrinal Mohit, “Over a period, we have observed that clear integration of game has demonstrated higher engagement and increased motivation towards learning especially amongst younger students, making them truly fall in love with learning”.
As the pandemic has abruptly changed the teaching-learning process and in this regard scholar Yuval Noah Harari wrote a book entitled -21 Lessons for the 21st centuary and in his book he tried to focus on traditional academic skills and rote learning, rather than on skills such as critical thinking and adaptability, which will be more important for success in the future. It is true that the new system must have some hindrance in learning process but in due course of time it would be a ‘new normal one’ To conclude my discussion in this new trend of education system, we must induce to switching over online system of learning, though the system is a complex one but an emerging field too. However, to make it successful first of all our mind set should change. Teachers need to shift teaching content paradigm towards a learning content paradigm to face. Besides these, new apps should be introduced as a tool of teaching and some local channel must telecast some subject oriented topic regularly by reputed teachers for the greater interest of the students.
