Being a student of the corona batch, I have got to experiment with all the online learning stuff and experience how it feels to listen to teachers through your phone. At first, to be honest, I felt very strange. Talking to my own teachers was so hard for me and I still don't know why. We started our online classes at the near end of Baisakh. It was quiet fun having 1-2 classes a day. We weren't completely sure if the virus was ever going away. Even if it didn't vanish with time, we had to continue our studies.
I was in my village, without any Wi-Fi, not even a data pack could let me join the online classes. It was frustrating back then. Having no internet and having to rely on others for study materials. I was getting really annoyed about the slow data connection that I used to have on the first couple months. But, guess what? We got our Wi-Fi. Living without Wi-Fi was like a fish on land. I was like gasping for Wi-Fi. The fact that now I could understand what the teachers said without even a single disturbance really put a huge smile on my face. I could use YouTube whenever I get bored from the lectures. This is the major flaw of having students attend classes online. The students are simply going to play with their phones rather than studying which is the main reason why everybody got unbelievable results in online exams and when they had to face the proper exams in school we were drenched in sweat mainly because we had no clue about how we could even pass the exams.
Teachers asking their students to turn their cameras on and students giving the same excuse for a whole year complaining about their broken cameras and mics was the climax of the online classes. There were plenty of students who refused to even speak or take part in the conversation. It really felt like our teachers were anchormen and we were watching a news report as there was no conversation between the students and the teachers. The teachers kept on talking and the students kept on listening. But, I still think that there was no other alternative to it. It was really helpful as well. We were connected online with our teachers which made it really easy for us to ask our questions and clear our doubts. We could even watch the recorded classes. So, even if we missed our classes, we could easily watch the recorded videos. There were plenty of issues like people getting disconnected from the call due to poor connection, strangers bombing our online classes, teachers repeatedly asking us to turn the cameras on and many more. These were just a few things that I got to experience in this online class journey. My thoughts about online learning
-Pratyus Gurung