Are you into online teaching? However, with our classrooms and our world further away than ever, there has never been a better time to learn the what, why, and how of digital education.
Here are the 10 advantages of online classes!
Contents
1. Flexibility
Let’s start with the obvious, shall we?
The ability to learn words completely anywhere without having to travel is perhaps one of the greatest benefits of e-learning.
It is an absolute lifesaver for students who
- Live in remote areas.
- Must take public transport to school.
- Should be closer to home for medical or other reasons.
And it’s not just the geographic flexibility we’re talking about here. Time flexibility means teachers with a lot of authority over their own schedules can arrange their online classroom around the lives of their students.
If it’s a nice day outside, and you’re one of the “cool” teachers, your students may have no problem rescheduled classes for the evening.
2. Strong boost for independent skills
The fact that teamwork is not easy to understand in distance learning is not necessarily a bad thing. It focuses more on independent work, which will later form much of the work that students do.
In fact, this is especially beneficial if you are teaching high school (high school) students. More personal work helps them best prepare for college, where they will largely work independently.
Of course, there is nothing to say that teamwork is completely off the table. Most video-calling software allows break rooms where students can do group work on a private video call before rejoining the main call.
3. Prepare for a distant future
Of all the pros and cons of e-learning, this will probably have the most lasting effect on a student’s future of work.
We all know we’re headed towards a remote working future, but the stats say it could be here sooner than you think:
- By 2025, about 70% of the US workforce will work remotely at least 1 workweek a month.
- Following the coronavirus pandemic, the number of permanent remote workers in 2021 is expected to double from 16.4% to 34.4%.
We probably don’t need a crystal ball to see that there’s a huge amount of Zoom calling out to your student’s future. Setting them up with this skill might not seem like a skill now, but getting used to the online video calling feature will definitely make them more stable later on.
4. More interaction
The sad truth of the modern school system is that it is not modern at all. We still primarily teach our learners through the same one-way information dump we did in Victorian times.
Online learning gives us the opportunity to flip the script.
Online interactive tools available in 2021 allow teachers to truly engage their students through two-way and group discussions. Here are some ways to engage students with very little preparation.
- Q&A – An orderly Q&A session where students can anonymously (or not) ask the teacher questions about the subject matter. These Q&A sessions can be saved for later access.
- Live Poll – Multiple choice questions are asked in real-time and students vote at home. This can be used to gather opinions or test understanding of a topic.
- Brainstorming – Open-ended questions and word clouds allow your students to freely put forth their ideas and discuss them with others.
- Quiz – A super fun, point-based method to test understanding in groups or solo is a multiple-choice quiz. In some software, each student’s answer to a question can be attached to an analysis report.
5. Using Online Materials is Extremely Superior
As we said, education isn’t the only thing going online in 2020. Collaborative online software, like Miro, Trello, and Figma really stepped up their game at the start of the decade.
For teachers, one of the biggest benefits of e-learning over the past few years has been Google Drive. Completely free, it allows them to create and share documents and folders, track homework, and collaborate with other teachers on student materials.
For students, having access to shared folders meant everything was perfectly organized for them. They can leave comments on anything they don’t understand and those questions will be answered by the teacher or classmates.
6. Easy to organize and summarize
In the offline model, classes are just very brief streams of information struggling against the daily distractions of a growing student. Often, students have a hard time remembering something they just learned yesterday.
Online, this is much less of an issue. Students can access previous information much, much more easily:
- Q&A – A written Q&A session means that all questions asked during a lesson are recorded.
- Record Sessions – Live video software allows you to record your lessons and share the entire content or selected parts of the lesson with your students.
- Shared Folders – All students can access Q&A logs, video recordings, documents, materials, and more from shared online folders.
In e-learning, everything is permanent. No individual lessons, discussions, or polls; Everything you teach or discuss with your students can be recorded, documented, and called out whenever information needs to be reviewed.
7. Join anonymously
As teachers, we all wonder how to get shy kids to thrive.
In fact, students who are afraid to speak in front of the class are more likely to contribute if they can remain anonymous.
Lots of interactive software allows students to anonymously answer and ask questions, and join discussions without fear of sanctions. Doing this not only helps them learn but also builds valuable confidence if done and praised repeatedly.
8. Downloadable lessons
Remember that many of the pros and cons of e-learning affect not only students but teachers as well.
On average, teachers spend 12-14 hours of their own time each week creating lesson plans and grading papers. However, new technology allows large teachers to split this preparation time.
Now, a huge library of lesson plans, discussion topics, assessments, and quizzes, created and shared by fellow teachers, is instantly downloadable for free on many software.
9. Organized Analytics
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: exams are far from the best way to measure student performance.
Consistent assessment throughout the year is More Effective and highly preferred by most students who come to the stressful, one-time test at the end.
Edtech’s analytics tools help teachers measure student performance on every test they take. Here’s what they reveal and how they can be a big plus for online learning:
- Overall results (proportion of students with correct answers).
- The hardest question (reveals the questions with the fewest correct answers).
- The performance of each student on the test.
- Report each student’s performance compared to their previous performances.
The analysis is available for download as a comprehensive spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are super organized and easy to find, which is a hugely welcome move away from thick student brochures flooded with paper assessments.
10. Lots of monitoring
You might think that children are easily distracted when the only thing keeping them engaged in their studies is the camera.
Well, when parents also work from home, there is more incentive for students to stay focused on their studies.
Naturally, technology is also there to fill the gaps. There are several pieces of free software available for viewing students’ computer screens, controlling them, and locking students’ screens if they refuse to cooperate.
Final thought
That’s the 10 advantages of online classes, with bleeding-edge technology and useful educational software, students and teachers can easily interact and discuss lessons.
Top News hopes this article helps you learn more about the benefits of online classes and wishes you the best on your studying journey!
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