Online learning is commonly called ‘distance learning’. Studying online is now getting more in demand as it does not requires visiting long hour schools. Sitting back at home, studying, and completing the course is getting widespread across the globe. There are different benefits of online school, along with a few disadvantages. You must know these before making your mindset. Every person has different mindsets, so their thoughts and way of understanding vary accordingly. Online classes play an important role in making every student understand topics. Proper course structures are prepared, and teachers are trained to follow the curriculum. But, some people struggle hard in understanding compared to others due to lack of understanding and often get less knowledge than others. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of online school.
Pros of Online School
Hereunder are the pros or benefits of online school.
1. Easy Admission
No need to give entrance tests and compete with other students to secure high marks and reserve a seat for themselves, which is in the case of regular schools. Regular schools conduct such entrance tests at their level and even conduct interviews to shortlist students and many more processes set-up by them. Students struggle hard to get admission in their desired schools. But, online schools have rare entrance tests or even easy compared to traditional schools, very few requirements for admission.
2. Location
Online students need not be present at the college and sit back home or even travel and learn. Traditional schools have their premises, and every student needs to be present on the premises to attend lectures. Online students have more benefits in this case. If you like laying back at home and studying and doing other works, online school is for you. You have school at home. What’s better than this.
3. No Commute
Students need not commute to the premises, again, savings in their expenses. Just sit back at home and complete studies. It also means more time to study, homework, a job, friends, and family.
4. Flexible Timings
Online schools have flexible timings for classes, which means students can do other important works. No time bound studies are required.
5. Multiple Courses
Online schools provide multiple courses for its students, and they can choose among the various list of courses which suits their requirement and what else just sitting at home. For regular classes, no school provides all courses; hence student needs to travel to the college for their choice, of course. Online students need to rejoice over this.
6. Study at Your Own Pace
Students of traditional schools try to cope up with the pace of the teacher, which is opposite in the case of online school. Students have the advantage of setting their own pace of study.
7. Online Resources
The internet has made our lives easier compared to earlier times. Everything is available over the internet. No need to search from books, magazines, newspapers about specific queries, simply search over the internet, and you are done. Even physical dictionaries are now getting less consideration over search engines. When everything is done on the internet, then why not online school! It is gaining appreciation and getting more modern.
8. Skill Development
Gathering information over the internet for study material increases your potential to the use of technology and developing skill sets like web browsing and information techniques over students of traditional classes as they lack these skills. By using multimedia presentations, students learn more interactively and faster. They grasp the subject with better examples and presentations. Online schools can use CD/DVDs, webcam, and streaming services to provide online classes and study materials.
9. 24X7 Access
In a traditional school, you need to attend classes to take down the notes, but in an online school, notes are available on the online portal and can access anytime. No need to struggle for notes. Good enough!
10. No Verbal Expression
Facing difficulty in expressing verbally? Need not worry. In online school, you just need to write down and simply mail. It motivates students to study at their best.
11. More Time to Answer
Online students can take their own time to reply to questions asked on the forum. In traditional schools, students need to reply immediately to the questions asked by the teacher, which is not in the case of online schools. Students can take their own time to think and may reply via email or on a forum when they are ready with appropriate answers. Students in traditional schools try to hide their faces when the teacher asks questions to the students so that they may not face those questions. It is common in every person. But online students have this advantage. They can hide from answering or may answer at their own pace.
12. More Attention
You have a private instructor, and you can clear your queries by mailing directly to him. In traditional classes, one teacher is bound to teach over dozens of students, and it gets difficult for them to clear their doubts.
13. Convenient
Students need not commute to the premises, need not buy school dress, no expense on copies, books, stationaries, and, most important, need not pay high fees charged by the traditional schools.
14. Less Expensive
Online classes are cost-effective. Compared to traditional schools, the fee structure of online schools is very less. Hence, saving your money. Online students need not buy a school dress, no or less expense on copies, books, stationaries.
15. Credit Transfer
Started a course and stopped in between due to any reason? You need not worry. A few online schools provide credit transfer for the course you paid and wish not to continue. This saves money you spent and the education you gained during the course.
16. Less Home Works
Online students need not to worry about daily home works. In traditional schools, home works are given daily to the students and is required to complete the same and be ready the next day to show it to the teacher. Means, study long hours at school and come back home and again do homework. But, in online classes, assessments are provided during the start of the course, and deadlines are provided at the same time, which is not close to the starting date. Several days or even weeks are provided to online students to complete their assignments.
17. No Discrimination
The most common form of harassment is discrimination. Studying with students all across the globe saves you from discrimination like color, race, religion, caste, sex, physical appearance, dress, sexual orientation, etc.
18. Good for Introverts
Being an introvert is your choice. Such people prefer to study of their own rather than communicating with other people to learn. Need not worry, online schools are beneficial for such people.
19. Best for Working Professionals
Working professionals also prefer online learning. Gaining more knowledge is a must as we are advancing in technologies. People can gain higher education online while working and studying in their spare time. No need to be satisfied after knowing about the pros of online school. Every coin has two sides. Till here, you got to know about one side of a coin. Now, get ready to be aware of another side of the coin, the cons of online school.
20. Suitable for PH
Online schools are a great way of learning for people with disabilities. Learning is every student’s right, and born with disabilities is God’s creation. No one should question or complain to God on that. Online schools have become a great source of learning for people who still want to study as others do.
21. Online Activities
Taking advantage of technologies, online schools are focusing on creating online games where students can take part in fun learning games and answer questions. Hence, checking their progress. Traditional schools conduct quizzes. Similarly, online schools do online activities like quizzes and games. Everything is online.
22. Friends Across the Globe
Get connected to students al across the world and commute with them and make new friends. Students of traditional schools do not get this benefit as they are introduced with people from selected geographical locations.
Cons of Online School
Hereunder are the cons or disadvantages of online school.
1. No Accreditation
Before joining an online school, check whether a school is accredited under verified government sites. Don’t get lured by advertisements guaranteeing and assuring accreditation of the online school. These advertisements are paid promotions. Spending so much of time, paying fees, studying hard, and at the end when get to know school is not accredited, everything done in the past becomes worthless. So, do proper research before joining is a must.
2. Miscommunication
Comparatively, a less practical approach towards topics. The method of teaching in traditional schools is much better as compared to online schools. There is very little or no face to face interaction with teachers in an online school, which makes it tough for students to clear their doubts. Sending queries through email and getting a response from online teachers may not be the perfect reason being teachers can not understand what student is trying to ask in an email. Miscommunication or less interaction may lead to less understanding than the knowledge gained from traditional schools.
3. No Campus
Online students get no access to the campus environment. They lack personality development as they are not socialized with students on campus and may not take part in extracurricular activities and sports conducted by colleges on their campus. Online students can just interact with other online students via emails and social media, but that’s not enough. Colleges organize annual fests on their campus for which every student is excited about, but online students do not get those exposures.
4. Slow Response
Having any queries regarding a topic, you have to mail to your instructor and wait for his response via email. It may sometimes take time, and the instructor may not give instant reply while you are studying that topic. Maybe the instructor is from another country where time is different, perhaps he/she is busy with some other work. So, you have to wait for his reply and study that again. Tough to handle!
5. Technical Expertise
Studying online requires every person to be technically equipped. A computer with a good processor having fast booting time, certain applications need to be installed for video conferencing, which again requires a configuration system. All requirement needs to be met for a laptop or computer system on which you are studying to access resources. It all requires you to spend money before starting the course or during the ongoing course as technology advances now and then.
6. Require High-speed Internet
When you talk about the word ‘online’ internet is the first thing that comes to the mind. While pursuing an online course, you need to have an internet connection with high-speed, which forces you to pay a high price to the internet service provider choosing high-speed plans. High-speed internet is required as you need to download hefty files from the online portal or even download videos with high resolution. Video conferencing with the instructor also need high-speed internet to get clear video and sound from both ends. Another hammer to your pocket.
7. Time Consuming
The tough task to handle. Studying online requires more time to study as compared to traditional classes. A topic may take more time to understand as students need to read and understand their own, which is more time taking. A project is generally assigned to a group of students and instructed to perform tasks within a specific deadline. It seems easy for on-campus students as they get socially interacted, but in the case of online students, they can just send mails to each other or post in a forum, typing long thoughts on a topic and wait for every student to reply. It is a time taking process, and they tend to lack those benefits gained by on-campus students.
8. Time Zone Difference
No wonder, the instructor is from another country where time differs, so you have to manage to submit assessment within the deadline. Be very clear about the difference in time zone. There is more than 12 hours difference in time zones between the two countries. So, you need to understand and work upon that. A bit difficult at times to manage.
9. Less Socializing
Social interaction, another important part of a successful life, seems lacking in the case of online classes. People who are socially interacted tender to gain knowledge more quickly. Lack of social communication often makes online students think again about their decision to study online rather than doing an on-campus course.
10. Plagiarism
Projects and assignments may be plagiarised when studying online, as these works need to be submitted online. It is easy to copy and paste from the internet as all resources are available online. It creates less knowledge in online students as ‘laziness is the monster of dark future’.
11. Cheating
Even exams are taken online, which does not ensure whether a student has studied and aware of topics. Cheating is an easy case during online exams, as there is no measure to control cheating. Knowledge gained will reward in the future, and cheating may not work in professional life. If thinking about joining an online school, for this reason, it is better to think again.
12. Isolation
Online students do not get to interact with other students of their stream as they are only available online and maybe from other provenance. Studies have found that group studies increase knowledge among students and develop more interest in studying and gaining knowledge from other students in a group. It may be the backdrop for online students as they get isolated.
13. Less Support
In traditional classes, teachers try to control your habits and studying methods and urge you to learn within time. But, this is not the case in online classes. No one is there to teach you or boost your studying skills. You have to do your own without knowing the right method.
14. More Hard Work
Reports indicate that online students need to wok more hard as they have to study of their own. With technologies getting advance, online students need to prove themselves of mastering in their department. Online studying is not as easy as people think. People need to study their own and try to understand every topic. It requires students to spend more time reading and doing assignments as compared to the students of traditional schools. Spending most of the time on the internet, sitting in front of the screen may cause health issues.
15. Self-discipline
It is another disadvantage of online school. Students in traditional schools may be less disciplined, but they are trained to get on the right track by their teachers. But, in the case of online students, there is no measure to check their discipline. So, they need to be self-disciplined to the extreme level. Time-bound management of study is a must for an online school. They need to submit assignments on time, complete their topics on time, and give examinations based on their study. Online study requires a high level of discipline.
16. Screen Time
While all study material is available online and you need to study on the computer or any other device, you will have to adapt your habit of being glued to the screen. Every work has to be done on the computer. Sometimes, it may alarm certain health issues mostly to the eyes. Be careful about that.
17. Less Effective Assessment
You have to prepare assessments of your own, without getting proper guidance and the submission is considered as the final submission.
18. Sole Responsibility
Managing self-discipline and studying time doesn’t mean you are apt to study online. Studying online requires you to own a fond path of studying and learning. You are solely responsible for studying online and deciding about your future.
19. Less Recognition
Have you completed an online course and going for an interview? Imagine there is another candidate for an interview with the same course but from conventional college. The other candidate has higher chances of getting selected because companies are not preferring over online students as they lack behind many aspects mentioned above. Although online schools are becoming famous, companies are still preferring conventional students over online students during recruitment.
20. Higher Chances of Drop out
Despite having multiple resources online, studies say that there are a higher number of students who drop out of their course compared to students of traditional schools. The reason being, they are unable to cope up with online studies due to lack of social interaction and require the self-discipline to complete their course. People are suggested to choose wisely after knowing the pros and cons of online school and knowing about themselves on what criteria they can withstand and plan for a bright future.
