Question

j2m speech on the topic online teaching a dream or reality.


pls help me write it down quickly. becoz it's really important. within 15 minutes.plsss​

Answer 1

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the academic year, cancelled classes and examinations across the country. To ensure that students do not miss out on their studies, schools moved classes online, forcing students to attend lectures via their gadgets. However, this has also sparked a debate on whether the increased amount of screen time helps students learn or if it impedes their progress. While Maharashtra has banned online classes from pre-primary to Class II, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have extended the ban till Class V. In a discussion moderated by Puja Pednekar, Kiran Bhatty and Reeta Sonawat look at the pros and cons of online learning. Edited excerpts:Has screen time for students increased because of online classes?

Reeta Sonawat: No, I do not think that online classes have increased screen time. Children are anyways hooked to screens whether it is in the form of television, mobile or computer. Children have been addicted to screens even before the COVID-19 pandemic began. They have been using the screen for eight to nine hours daily. When it comes to online lessons, most schools are not depending only on screens. They are giving students a blended approach by including various activities in their lessons. At pre-school level, children are asked to do painting or craft. Some schools conduct yoga sessions; ask students to experiment in the kitchen, make a salad at home. Children only have to watch their screens during storytelling sessions. But those too are designed creatively to engage students. So, there is a bit of screen time, but it is interspersed with hands-on activities.

What we need to understand is that if we do not hold these classes, we will be hampering the child’s brain development. In early childhood, the child’s brain develops every day. So, we cannot afford to miss even a single day. And for brain development, children need to receive the right kind of stimulation, which only teachers can provide. They have been trained to provide age-appropriate stimulation

Kiran Bhatty: Looking at the screen for long periods of time can be harmful. And since schools have shifted to online instruction, it does imply long hours of screen time for the child. And that doesn’t seem to be a healthy way of learning. In addition to the impact on their health, online learning from home can also be very isolating and lonely for the child. They don’t have their peers around them and are sort of learning by themselves. Even the teachers’ role becomes limited. Children do not get the kind of supervision that they would in a classroom. Parents might be too busy with their own work to supervise online learning. These factors impact learning.

Also, many children, especially those attending government schools, are being deprived of education during the pandemic as they do not have access to online facilities. They are actually missing out on their lessons. Though some families may have access to digital technology, there might not be enough devices for the personal use of all the family members. The parents may be working from home and need to use their computers. So, each household needs to have several gadgets that they can distribute among all of them so that that is really not possible for a large section of the population.