E-learning Versus Traditional Teaching

The internet has taken the world by storm and as a result we are nowadays living in a technological society whereby online learning has become accessible to people internationally. This leads us to question the relevance of the traditional classroom based teaching in such a modern world. However does necessarily e-learning initiates the removal of textbooks, other reference books, schools and even the teachers?

It is important to note that whatever the type of education the child will undergo, teaching after all is a matter of creating a healthy learning environment where all students can engage themselves regardless of the advanced resources which we are nowadays being faced with. Thus, the key issue relies in the concept of trying to cater for all students.

I personally think that the best way to handle this issue would be to adapt our teaching strategies according to the classroom we are teaching. I think that our teaching should be in relation to our students' potentiality. If we are faced with students who possess all the necessary technological equipment, then I tend to strongly agree in introducing this phenomena of e-learning. On the other hand, if the students lack the equipment to benefit from e-learning, I would have to resort back to the traditional teaching tools and resources. Otherwise we would be discriminating learning to these students. Yet, one cannot but mention the fact that if we blindly decide to keep e-learning at a distance from our teaching strategies, certain students might experience de-motivation. And indeed we cannot blame them as nowadays society is constantly increasing the expectations of experiencing the education process in a most interactive manner. Being faced with such dilemma, I am inclined to believe that we cannot simply draw a line and decide to adopt a fixed teaching strategy. Furthermore, my ideal would be if the teacher manages to promote an education whereby learning is intertwined with the use of the web and physical contact.

One cannot but forget to mention that human interaction is fundamental for the students in order to develop their social skills. At the same time the use of technologies such as e-learning will help us teachers to make learning more fun and interactive. I think that given the chance to make use of it, I would gladly try to introduce and put this phenomenon into practice.