Currently, due to the pandemic, all students have to do online work because schools are closed. There are many mixed opinions about the idea of online school, some saying that they love it because they don’t have to wake up early and leave their house. Others saying they hate it because they have no motivation and can’t see their friends. I happen to fall into both categories like many other people. However the current learning situation has a lot of people thinking... could online schooling be the future of education?
I decided to interview my mum, who is a teacher that has taught both online classes and normal classes to see what she thinks. When she was asked about if online school was something that she could see taking over in the future, she said “It could because it is very effective as students pay more attention to what the teacher is saying since they aren’t distracted by other students” however “Slow internet can often be a disadvantage”. The students in her classes are “motivated to learn” and some even ask for “more online classes”. When asked about if she sees online school as a better replacement for normal school she said “It’s complicated because school is where people socialise but online school helps students concentrate without being distracted by others. I think they need a balance of both”.
Even though online schooling seems like something that could happen in the future, right now there are a lot of problems with it. For example, 5 million people in the UK don’t have access to the internet and many more have slow networks. Online schooling would put those students at a disadvantage. Another problem is the lack of motivation to do schoolwork, admittedly I am one of the people affected by this, with many students at this time saying that online work feels “optional” and in some cases there being less than 50% of students attending online classes. Psychology studies have shown that working at home can prove to be very difficult. This is because we mostly associate our rooms with leisure and relaxation so understandably mixing your school work in it doesn’t work well. Furthermore, a change in environment has been shown to boost your levels of productivity so only staying at home could make completing work challenging.
Right now is a stressful and difficult time so it is understandable to have a lack of motivation to do work and whilst online school is something that seems like it would happen in the future, by the looks of it it won’t be in the near future.
