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Online Classes During Covid

The spread of COVID-19 led to widespread school closures, forcing educational institutions to rapidly transition to online learning using technologies like video conferencing. While this helped continue education, it presented challenges for students unaccustomed to online formats and those lacking reliable Internet access. A study was conducted to assess faculty and student perceptions of online learning's advantages, limitations, and how it could be improved in Pakistan. The pandemic may permanently change education by requiring the ability to adapt to online work and study in any situation.

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Arslan Amjad
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77 views2 pages

Online Classes During Covid

The spread of COVID-19 led to widespread school closures, forcing educational institutions to rapidly transition to online learning using technologies like video conferencing. While this helped continue education, it presented challenges for students unaccustomed to online formats and those lacking reliable Internet access. A study was conducted to assess faculty and student perceptions of online learning's advantages, limitations, and how it could be improved in Pakistan. The pandemic may permanently change education by requiring the ability to adapt to online work and study in any situation.

Uploaded by

Arslan Amjad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Online classes during the Pandemic

The spread of COVID-19 has led to the closure of educational institutions all over
the world. This tested the preparedness of universities to deal with a crisis that
requires the help of advanced technology including hardware and software to
enable effective online learning. Such closure accelerated the development of the
online learning environments so that learning would not be disrupted.1 Many
institutions have become interested in how to best deliver course content online,
engage learners and conduct assessments. Hence, COVID-19 while being a hazard
to humanity, has evolved institutions to invest in online learning.

Online learning systems are web-based software for distributing, tracking, and
managing courses over the Internet. It involves the implementation of
advancements in technology to direct, design and deliver the learning content, and
to facilitate two-way communication between students and faculty. They contain
features such as whiteboards, chat rooms, polls, quizzes, discussion forums and
surveys that allow instructors and students to communicate online and share
course content side by side. These can offer productive and convenient ways to
achieve learning goals. In Pakistan, the institutions are using Microsoft Teams,
Google meet, Edmodo and Moodle as learning management systems along with
their applications for video conferencing. Other commonly used video
conferencing solutions include Zoom, Skype for business, WebEx and Adobe
connect etc.
As a student participating in the home-learning program, online school was
confusing to adjust to as we had not been prepared through simulations or
practices beforehand. Students reported the home-learning program to be even
more stressful than regular classrooms. Some of the common reasons for this went
along the lines of: "Normal classes may have been difficult, but having friends
makes it so much more manageable and less stressful. Online classes take out the
benefits of having friends to socialize with and being stuck alone with nothing but
assignments."

Many students participating in home-learning programs also say that the workload
of online classes is larger than that of regular classes. The general consensus is that
home-learning programs — although highly beneficial and a good alternative to
Online classes during the Pandemic

school as schools are closed — still require some getting used to by students, as it
is a novel concept and not many are experienced with them. This is because those
students lack the devices and internet access to be able to participate in online
classes, and the schools do not have the capacity to teach online.

However, although the closing of schools does have a silver lining (home-learning
programs where students are still able to learn), the true sufferers of the
government order of school closings are the students in less fortunate situations
and the students who are in schools that are not well-funded. This leaves many
students in a bad spot where they are unable to receive an education. Although
internet service providers have been giving out free data packages, they are simply
not capable of supporting video calls on programs such as Zoom.
With the increase in use of online modalities during COVID-19, it is necessary to
assess their effectiveness with regards to teaching and learning from various
stakeholders Therefore, the current study explores the perception of faculty
members and students regarding the advantages, limitations and
recommendations for online learning in Pakistan. The study is timely as Higher
Education Commission (HEC) is in the process of implementing online learning
across all the universities in Pakistan.
The presence of COVID-19 will directly and permanently change education in the
future, seeing that we must be able to adapt to working and studying online for any
kind of reasons and situations. Only time will tell whether online classes will be a
good substitute for normal classes, and if they are, there will be a rise in online
educational programs and online universities.

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