Week 6: The new way of learning — Online courses, early bird, and real conversation
Recently, the new coronavirus, named Covid-19, was spread from the Wuhan city of China and our country took action to prevent the new virus. One of the actions was to stop education organizations and all the lessons of universities are taught online. The secondary and primary school subjects are instructed by the TV. It is a new challenge for me because I have no experience with studying official subjects in the far distance. I hope what I gained within one week was so important remark for me and my colleagues. There were benefits and consequences in a new way of teaching.
The first advantage of online courses is that we can review the lectures during leisure time. I am a note-taker person; I cannot comprehend any topics without writing it down. It was hard to note the lecture slides in the classroom because of the fast transition speed of slides. With online materials, I can track lecture materials and fully understand the main point of the lecturer’s explanation. Now, I do not have to ask lecturers to wait for me for a moment before change a current slide. Although it took a short time, I think that some of my classmates were annoyed by the waiting requests. However, I can not make it in time. There are some lectures which I planned to take notes on the weekend. On weekdays, it is hard to review the lectures because of deadlines of quizzes, homework, and assignments. The new way of learning releases new opportunities that handle my problems.
Secondly, it affected positively my biorhythm. Everyone has own sleep pattern that we can generally divide into two parts, particularly, early bird and night owl. I have a talent that I can change my pattern in a short period of time, but it often takes a few weeks to completely transit into one from another and depends on the season. For instance, it is hard to wake up early in the winter because the outside is dark. I was frequently told that we humans are biological products. We are similar to the other animals which surround us. Since there are two types of animal, night and day life, we can be whatever we want to be. We tend to work on the night shift since the electricity and lamp were invented. Electronic devices display emits the blue light that prevents us from sleep. However, I get used to waking up early to prepare and review my lessons in the morning. The cheaper morning internet data package makes me get up early and gives me the opportunity to download or upload big-sized materials.
Texting is a brilliant way to miscommunicate how you feel, and misinterpret what other people mean. -Wisdom Quote
On the other hand, communication between students and professors became worse than face-to-face communication. We use the Google Classroom platform as our communication tool. Professors upload their lecture and seminar material in time and assignment with a deadline. Assigning quizzes plays a role of checking attendance in a new way. We can ask the questions from the lecturers using comment boxes in the platform, and they responded to our questions using the same tool during the office hours. However, the platform does not notify me if the lecturer answered my question. Hence, I need to refresh the page of the subject in the Classroom after clarifying anything. Obviously, it took time from me and it affects negatively to my effort. Moreover, the lecturers do not give responses just after interrogating them because of some reason. If it was a real conversation, they would respond immediately.
