Student Blog

Online Education | A New Method Emerged During The Pandemic

Ioana GABOREANU, Miriam SUCIU, Patricia MOCIAR, Tania JUGAREAN, Florin MUNTOIU, Vlad NAN

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and universities around the world decided to put a pause on their usual activity, and instead chose to move their courses to the online environment. Apps like GoogleMeet, Zoom, Skype and Discord became the main way of communication between teachers and students. This was also the case in Romania and, as well, in our university.

Online education

Online education is quite unusual for everyone and it was chosen as a different approach to classic schooling.

This was a good choice as the students can continue to study in order to finish their academic year and at the same time, respect the social distancing measures. It allows people to test this kind of teaching, so that in the future it could be more widely used.

Here are some pros and cons regarding online education from BA Blogs‘ point of view.

Good parts about online education 👍🏻

Saving time: students can rest between classes because they are at home. You do not waste time being stuck in traffic jams or searching for parking spots.
Less costly: there are no transportation costs
More sleep: students do not have to wake up as early as in classes where the physical presence is required
More comfort: some students feel more comfortable to study from home, feeling good in their own private space

Drawbacks 👎🏻

Absence: students are often present with the “name” only, many muting the class. As a result, the feedback is poor or non-existent.
Interaction: teachers cannot see the nonverbal cues for proper conversation and responses
Self-discipline: requires intense self-discipline due to the fact that online school usually lacks structure
Not so good performance: bad video/audio hardware and weak internet connection which might result in repeating the same question or sentence
Unfamiliarity: some people might not be so familiar with using online tools and thus some problems may come about

Was this a good approach?

All in all, we consider that this method is suitable for the times that we are going through. However, this teaching method can’t totally replace the regular classes and the face-to-face interactions.

If you have any other aspects that you would want to discuss, visit our Facebook page.

If you’re finding this period difficult to go through, here are some activities you can do to keep yourself occupied.

“Anyone who takes online classes must be independent learners”