Online Education During Covid - Is it Really as Beneficial as Before?

     As I have talked about previously in my blog, education has definitely been impacted by the coronavirus. Most of learning now is through online programs such as zoom or google meet. Some individuals have been affected more than others through this change in education. 

   Personally, I do believe that online learning has not provided an equal opportunity for learning during Covid. The most obvious reason I have for this would probably be that obviously not every individual has an electronic on which they can do coursework and also not every individual has access to internet. For example, I went to high school in a very small, rural county. I would say that at least half of the students did not have access to internet. This made it very difficult for them when schools shut down in March, because at the beginning of each unit, those individuals who did not have access to internet, had to drive to the school to pick up a packet and work on coursework. If that was not enough of a struggle, the coursework most of the time was not even the same coursework that was taught to those who were online. While I did have access to internet, I still felt bad for the students who had to go through all the work with packets. A lot of individuals ended up just quitting at the end of the school year, including seniors who were just months away from completing their high school career. Another reason why I believe that online learning has not provided equal opportunity for learning is because many individuals fall greatly behind in their online coursework because they are someone they care about has affected by COVID-19.

    I do believe that there should be a hardship clause for students in situations like this. Being online is difficult. It takes a lot of work and resources and when you aren't able to afford these resources or some outside factor is causing you to perform poorly, help should be provided to you. I believe that students who are directly impacted by the coronavirus should not have easier work, but less work. However, that would mean they would have to take an extra semester of that class in the spring, winter, or summer. Let me try to simplify this. For example let's say there is a student who is in a Chemistry class. This class is to much for her to deal with as she has to take care of her grandmother, who recently came back from the hospital after being treated from COVID-19. A program (the one that I have made up for students who are struggling due to COVID-19) that consists of a Chemistry class with less overall material is available to her. While this class has less material making it seem easier, it forces you to take an extra semester of Chemistry to catch up with everything. I think this program would be implemented fairly because it comes with a price. If you take the less dense material it will take you a longer time to finish/ earn your degree. 

    My experiences with learning online have been both good and bad. I do like having the liberty and freedom to somewhat do my work whenever I please, but it is also problematic because it makes it more easily to procrastinate. I have had a lot of struggle with my math class in particular, because there always seems to be an issue disrupting our online lectures. If it's not cats, then it's the professor getting kicked out of the meeting or the professor not knowing how to get the mic turned on. Overall that class has just been extremely chaotic, causing more than half of the students to have very poor grades.

    To be honest, I do feel like I'm being a little cheated on my education, with it being online. Online schooling for me, personally, has led me to become pretty lazy. I don't really try to memorize concepts because most of the exams are open note, I normally leave my work for last minute, and a lot of times do not pay attention to lectures in class because I tell myself that I can learn the material later. Because of all of this, I believe I will be less competitive in the job market. However, COVID-19 is not responsible for all of this. As a student it is my responsibility to make sure that I am doing the absolute best that I can, regardless of the situation.