Online schools are a way of attending classes online. They consist of virtual classes that students take at home or at their leisure. Some online classes involve face-to-face interaction over the internet. Online teachers are hired across the globe and work remotely to teach students taking online classes.
Online learning is commonly called ‘distance learning.’ Studying online is becoming more popular as it does not require visiting long-hour schools. Sitting back at home, studying, and completing the course is getting widespread across the globe. There are different benefits of online school, along with a few disadvantages. You must know these before making your mindset.
Every person has a different mindset, so their thoughts and ways of understanding vary accordingly. Online classes play an important role in helping every student understand topics. Proper course structures are prepared, and teachers are trained to follow the curriculum. However, some people struggle harder to understand than others due to a lack of understanding and often gain less knowledge than others.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of online school.
Pros of Online School
Hereunder are the pros and benefits of online school.
1. Easy Admission
There is no need to take entrance tests and compete with other students to secure high marks and reserve a seat for themselves, which is the case in regular schools. Regular schools conduct such entrance tests at their level and even conduct interviews to shortlist students, among many other processes they set up. Students struggle hard to get admission to their desired schools. However, online schools have rare entrance tests or are even easier than traditional ones, with very few requirements for admission.
2. Location
Online students need not be present at the college and sit back home or even travel and learn. Traditional schools have their premises, and every student must be present to attend lectures. Online students have more benefits in this case.
If you like relaxing at home while studying or doing other work, online school is for you. You have school at home—what’s better than this?
3. No Commute
Students need not commute to the premises, again saving on their expenses. Just sit back at home and complete your studies. It also means more time to study, homework, a job, friends, and family.
4. Flexible Timings
Online schools have flexible class timings, meaning students can do other important work. No time-bound studies are required.
5. Multiple Courses
Online schools provide multiple courses for their students, and they can choose from the various courses that suit their requirements and what else is just sitting at home. For regular classes, no school provides all courses; hence, students must travel to the college of their choice. Online students need to rejoice over this.
6. Study at Your Own Pace
Students of traditional schools try to cope with the teacher’s pace, which is the opposite in the case of online schools. Students have the advantage of setting their own pace of study.
7. Online Resources
The internet has made our lives easier compared to earlier times. Everything is available over the internet. No need to search from books, magazines, newspapers about specific queries, simply search over the internet, and you are done. Even physical dictionaries are now getting less consideration over search engines. When everything is done on the internet, then why not go to online school? It is gaining appreciation and getting more modern.
8. Skill Development
Gathering information over the internet for study material increases your potential to use technology and develop skill sets like web browsing and information techniques over students of traditional classes as they lack these skills.
Multimedia presentations help students learn more interactively and faster. They grasp the subject with better examples and presentations. Online schools can use CDs/DVDs, webcams, and streaming services to provide online classes and study materials.
9. 24X7 Access
In a traditional school, you need to attend classes to take down the notes, but in an online school, notes are available on the online portal and can be accessed anytime. There is no need to struggle for notes. Good enough!
10. No Verbal Expression
Facing difficulty in expressing verbally? Do not worry. In online school, you just need to write down and simply mail. It motivates students to study at their best.
11. More Time to Answer
Online students can take their time to reply to questions on the forum. In traditional schools, students need to reply immediately to the questions asked by the teacher, which is not in the case of online schools. Students can take their own time to think and may reply via email or on a forum when they are ready with appropriate answers.
Students in traditional schools often hide their faces when the teacher asks questions so that they do not face those questions. This is common in every person. However, online students have this advantage. They can hide from answering or answering at their own pace.
12. More Attention
You have a private instructor who can clear your queries by mailing directly to him. In traditional classes, one teacher is bound to teach dozens of students, making it difficult for them to clear their doubts.
13. Convenient
Students need not commute to the premises, need not buy school dress, no expense on copies, books, stationaries, and, most importantly, need not pay the high fees charged by the traditional schools.
14. Less Expensive
Online classes are cost-effective. Compared to traditional schools, the fee structure of online schools is much less. Hence saving your money.
Online students need not buy a school dress, no or less expense on copies, books, stationaries.
15. Credit Transfer
Did you start a course and stop in between for any reason? You need not worry. A few online schools provide credit transfers for the courses you paid for and wish not to continue. This saves money you spend and the education you gain during the course.
16. Fewer Home Works
Online students need not worry about daily homework. In traditional schools, homework is given daily to the students, who are required to complete it and be ready the next day to show it to the teacher. This means studying long hours at school and coming back home and again doing homework. However, in online classes, assessments are provided during the start of the course, and deadlines are provided simultaneously, which is not close to the starting date. Online students are provided with several days or weeks to complete their assignments.
17. No Discrimination
The most common form of harassment is discrimination. Studying with students all across the globe saves you from discrimination like color, race, religion, caste, sex, physical appearance, dress, sexual orientation, etc.
18. Good for Introverts
Being an introvert is your choice. Such people prefer to study independently rather than communicate with others to learn. Need not worry, online schools are beneficial for such people.
19. Best for Working Professionals
Working professionals also prefer online learning. Gaining more knowledge is a must as we are advancing in technology. People can gain higher education online while working and studying in their spare time.
There is no need to be satisfied after knowing about the pros of online school. Every coin has two sides. You have already learned about one side of a coin. Now, get ready to be aware of another side of the coin: the cons of online school.
20. Suitable for PH
Online schools are a great way for people with disabilities to learn. Learning is every student’s right, and being born with disabilities is God’s creation. No one should question or complain to God about that. Online schools have become a great source of learning for people who still want to study as others do.
21. Online Activities
Using technology, online schools focus on creating games that allow students to participate in fun learning games and answer questions. Hence checking their progress. Traditional schools conduct quizzes. Similarly, online schools do online activities like quizzes and games. Everything is online.
22. Friends Across the Globe
Get connected to students all across the world, commute with them, and make new friends. Students of traditional schools do not get this benefit as they are introduced to people from selected geographical locations.
Cons of Online School
Hereunder are the cons or disadvantages of online school.
1. No Accreditation
Before joining an online school, check whether a school is accredited under verified government sites. Don’t get lured by advertisements guaranteeing and assuring online school accreditation. These advertisements are paid promotions. We spend so much time paying fees and studying hard, and, in the end, when we learn that the school is not accredited, everything done in the past becomes worthless. So, doing proper research before joining is a must.
2. Miscommunication
Comparatively, a less practical approach towards topics. The method of teaching in traditional schools is much better as compared to online schools. There is very little or no face-to-face interaction with teachers in an online school, which makes it difficult for students to clear their doubts. Sending queries through email and getting a response from online teachers may not be the perfect reason, as teachers can not understand what students are trying to ask in an email. Miscommunication or less interaction may lead to less understanding than the knowledge gained from traditional schools.
3. No Campus
Online students get no access to the campus environment. They lack personality development as they do not socialize with students on campus and may not take part in extracurricular activities and sports conducted by colleges on their campus. Online students can just interact with other online students via emails and social media, but that’s not enough. Colleges organize annual fests on their campus, which every student is excited about, but online students do not get those exposures.
4. Slow Response
If you have any queries regarding a topic, mail them to your instructor and await his response. It may sometimes take time, and the instructor may not immediately reply while you are studying that topic. Maybe the instructor is from another country where the time is different. Perhaps he/she is busy with some other work. So, you have to wait for his reply and study that again. Tough to handle!
5. Technical Expertise
Studying online requires every person to be technically equipped. For a computer with a good processor and fast booting time, certain applications need to be installed for video conferencing, which again requires a configuration system. All requirements must be met for a laptop or computer system you are studying to access resources. It all requires you to spend money before starting the course or during the ongoing course as technology advances now and then.
6. Require High-speed Internet
When you talk about the word ‘online’ internet is the first thing that comes to the mind. While pursuing an online course, you need a high-speed internet connection, which forces you to pay a high price to the internet service provider choosing high-speed plans. High-speed internet is required to download hefty files from the online portal or even high-resolution videos. Video conferencing with the instructor also needs high-speed internet to get clear video and sound from both ends. Another hammer to your pocket.
7. Time Consuming
A tough task to handle. Studying online requires more time than traditional classes. A topic may take more time to understand as students need to read and understand independently, which takes more time.
A project is generally assigned to a group of students and instructed to perform tasks within a specific deadline. It seems easy for on-campus students as they get socially interacted with, but in the case of online students, they can just send emails to each other or post in a forum, typing long thoughts on a topic and waiting for every student to reply. It is a time-consuming process, and they tend to lack the benefits gained by on-campus students.
8. Time Zone Difference
No wonder. The instructor is from another country where time differs, so you have to manage to submit the assessment within the deadline. Be very clear about the difference in time zone. There are more than 12 hours of difference in time zones between the two countries. So, you need to understand and work on that. It can be a bit difficult at times to manage.
9. Less Socializing
Social interaction, another important part of a successful life, seems lacking in the case of online classes. Socially interactive people tend to gain knowledge more quickly. Lack of social communication often makes online students reconsider their decision to study online rather than do an on-campus course.
10. Plagiarism
Projects and assignments may be plagiarised when studying online, as these works need to be submitted online. It is easy to copy and paste from the internet as all resources are available online. It creates less knowledge in online students as ‘laziness is the monster of dark future.’
11. Cheating
Even exams are taken online, which does not ensure whether a student has studied and is aware of topics. Cheating is an easy case during online exams, as there is no measure to control cheating. Knowledge gained will be rewarded in the future, and cheating may not work in professional life. If thinking about joining an online school, for this reason, it is better to think again.
12. Isolation
Online students do not get to interact with other students of their stream as they are only available online and maybe from other provenance. Studies have found that group studies increase knowledge among students and develop more interest in studying and gaining knowledge from other students in a group. It may be the backdrop for online students as they get isolated.
13. Less Support
In traditional classes, teachers try to control your habits and studying methods and urge you to learn quickly. But, this is not the case in online classes. No one is there to teach you or boost your studying skills. You have to do your own without knowing the right method.
14. More Hard Work
Reports indicate that online students need to work harder as they have to study independently. With technologies advancing, online students must prove themselves by mastering their subjects. Online studying is not as easy as people think. People need to study their own and try to understand every topic. It requires students to spend more time reading and doing assignments than traditional school students. Spending most of the time on the internet and sitting in front of the screen may cause health issues.
15. Self-discipline
It is another disadvantage of online school. Students in traditional schools may be less disciplined, but their teachers train them to get on the right track. But, in the case of online students, there is no measure to check their discipline. So, they need to be self-disciplined to the extreme level. Time-bound study management is a must for an online school. They must submit assignments on time, complete their topics on time, and take examinations based on their study. Online study requires a high level of discipline.
16. Screen Time
While all study material is available online and you must study on the computer or any other device, you must adapt your habit of being glued to the screen. Every work has to be done on the computer. Sometimes, it may cause certain health issues, mostly to the eyes. Be careful about that.
17. Less Effective Assessment
You have to prepare assessments of your own without getting proper guidance, and the submission is considered as the final submission.
18. Sole Responsibility
Managing self-discipline and studying time doesn’t mean you are apt to study online. Studying online requires you to own a fond path of studying and learning. You are solely responsible for studying online and deciding about your future.
19. Less Recognition
Have you completed an online course and going for an interview? Imagine there is another candidate for an interview with the same course but from a conventional college. The other candidate is more likely to be selected because companies do not prefer online students as they are behind in many aspects mentioned above. Although online schools are becoming famous, companies still prefer conventional students over online students during recruitment.
20. Higher Chances of Dropout
Despite having multiple resources online, studies say that a higher number of students drop out of their courses than students of traditional schools. The reason is that they cannot cope with online studies due to a lack of social interaction and require self-discipline to complete their course.
People are suggested to choose wisely after knowing the pros and cons of online school, knowing what criteria they can withstand, and planning for a bright future.