Greetings dear teachers and my fellow Columbans. This pandemic of the corona virus aka COVID-19, has led to a significant change in our lives. We have been asked to regularly wash are hands, even if we are staying indoors, the words, “coronavirus”, ”transmission”, “contact”, have become household words.We have been forced to be extra sensitive towards our hygiene.Social distancing and being quarantined and the various intricacies of being in a lockdown havesuddenly turned our lives upside down.And amidst this period of turmoil and confusion in the country, somewhere or the other our studies have been affected. We students, however, have made a startling discovery!Resilience in human beings makes them unstoppable. The unceasing efforts of teachers and students at St. Columba’s has made technology the new way of life, and Blogger has now found meaning in our lives.
However, this notable change in our studies, and daily school life, has its own set of vices, as well as virtues.
I spoke to some of my friends to find out how they feel about lockdown and studying online. This is what they have to say -
“Studying with the help of technology is helpful to a certain extent, but it also reduces the social bonds with our friends, and the atmosphere of a classroom is missing, too.”
-Ashman Tiwari
“Online studying helps us to study in a very flexible way. However, the increase in screen time may prove to be a serious problem in the long term.”
-Aryaman Gupta
“In a classroom, there is often the problem of students who disturb the decorum of the whole class, and thus our studies get affected. This problem, however is not there with online studies. The learning is far more effective and we can focus better.”
-Pranshu Wadhwa
“The problem of ragging and bullying among students is all too common in schools, and this proves to be a major deterrent in coming to school, thus there is a major obstruction in the studies of the student. This problem, though, is totally cured in online classes.”
-Yashowardhan Chaudhary
The first disadvantage of studyingdigitally is the lack of trust. The smart phones of today’s generation are technologically advanced.One of the main benefits of smartphones is being able to simultaneously cope with a lot of other activities, and this means that we can never be too sure whether a student is actually studying or not, since a student could very well give his attendance in the blog and continue to browse sites such as Youtube. Secondly, we have to spend a lot of time on our mobiles/laptops, and this leads to excess of screen time. This increase in screen time can cause headaches, temporary blurred vision, and sleep deficiency.Since we are not in the atmosphere of a classroom, the teacher-student relationship is not formed, and all the doubts of the students may not be cleared. And there definitely is a lack of socializing among the students.
The flip side of this new way of learning is that it helps us to complete our work on time. Since there isn’t a black board on which all the teachers work, which gets erased later, any student can complete their incomplete and pending work simply by accessing the respective teacher’s blogs. Secondly, absolutely opposite to the disadvantage of lack of socializing, students that like to stay alone, or are introverts, may find this type of studying to be a boon for them, and may start to have an increasing interest in studies. Our normal school time often does not allow more timewith family, and we may have missed out on a lot of family time. But now, we do see, talk and share a lot with our parents. This also is the best time to work on self-control and self-discipline.
But it’s up to us to decide, that whether we use it for the greater good, or we use it only for our entertainment.
Thank you.
Riddhiman
