Challenges and opportunities of distance learning and teaching

        Distance learning is not a strange phenomenon hence it is been started a several centuries ago. An English educator, Sir Isaac Pitman used shorthand by mail to teach in 1840.The university of London is the first university who becomes offer distance learning degrees. In late 1900, distance learning transformed as e-Learning as a result of technological revolution. Now, the distance learning is a complex system that include Government policies, loans, databases, working methods etc. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, all colleges, institutes and universities paid their attention to distance learning.

 What is the most important factor in distance learning and teaching?

It is the network. The world wide web is used to e-learning. Nowadays, the online learning has been transformed from the kindergarten to higher education systems. This results a rapid increasing demand to internet.

 What is the biggest challenge Sri Lanka facing in distance learning and teaching?

The biggest challenge Sri Lanka faces in this evolution, having a poor network bandwidth. As per Surf shark digital quality of life index, Sri Lanka’s index value is 0.457. Further, in rural areas of Sri Lanka, the signal strength is very low. Students who live in these places have to climb up mountains, trees or whatever higher place that indicate strong mobile signals. Also, adapting to unfamiliar methods and technology is another challenge.

In addition, E-learning platforms such as zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet occur unknown errors. Unstable power & energy breakups might be occurred. Also, all typical routers do not have a charging method as mobile phones which can charge using power banks. Also, laptops do not have methods to charge if a power failure occurs.

Further, poverty is another obstacle Sri Lanka faces. Due to this reason, most of the students do not laptops which can the students learn in more comfortable manner.

 Have you ever slept while in a zoom call?

This is another challenge in distance learning. All the participants are connected through the internet. Students’ microphones and cameras are off. Teacher or lecturer delivers their content. Hence, we do not have any live sense. Thus, participants get distracted easily. Some of them are asleep, some of them do another irrelevant work during the lecture. Also, when downloading or uploading course materials errors might be occurred. When learning or teaching in institutional place, the students can gather and have informal and formal communications with colleagues. This results to stay motivated and energetic in learning or teaching.

 

Completing Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO) is the important achievement to the students. When Distance learning occurs, it saves time with easily delivering quizzes, viva and assessment submissions. These are the Opportunities in Distance learning. On the other hand, institutes don't want to print lot of notes or whatever learning materials. This cause to reduce the papers and it saves trees in the world. Green world is a sustainable development goal. Start from a little thing that we need today. These are the opportunities of distance learning and teaching .

T.D. Athapaththu
Undergraduate
University of peradeniya