E-learning

E-learning is starting to emerge on its own right now. I remember I was in Secondary 1 when I had my first contact with e-learning. That happened during the SARS period. Students were all stuck at home and I guess my school decided to go with the e-learning method so we would not miss out on our day-to-day learning. In my own opinion, I felt that the whole e-learning experience was a massive failure simply because this method was something new to both the school and us students. The school did not fully utilize the portal and also, the teachers didn’t really go through the work with us in the end. After that, the portal wasn’t used very often when I last checked.

The second time I met up with e-learning was when I entered poly. My poly was keen on us getting our own laptops as its specialized problem-based learning was partially dependent on the whole idea of e-learning. Various forms of digital tools were being used in our lessons. As a communication student, it was superbly useful in my own learning. I picked up on certain techniques or concepts much faster with the use of e-learning.

With e-learning, there is the question of virtual classroom vs physical classroom:

What exactly is a virtual classroom? Basically a virtual classroom is an online learning environment. The environment can be web-based and accessed through a portal. The teacher and students are logged into the virtual learning environment at the same time. It's pretty similar to a real classroom since both teacher and students have to be present. Students can participate through video streaming and produce their own questions in the forum.

I am generally fine with e-learning. There are definitely advantages on using e-learning and being present in a virtual classroom.

However, I wouldn't prefer being in a virtual classroom over a physical classroom. Being well-aware of my capabilities, I am more suitable to be in a physical classroom. I have this tendency to not understand certain things and it might even be possible that I might get misunderstood if I post questions but frame it in my own way - in which the teacher or other students will interpret it according to their understanding. Thus, I would prefer to be in a real classroom and have a one-on-one interaction with the teacher or classmates.