Online teaching and learning has become an essential part in human lives due to the Corona pandemic in the world. Though it was already available and used by a few people for sometime, Sri Lanka was not even experimenting the use of it even in higher educational levels. Many universities all over the world has been using online platforms to conduct their courses but, it was totally new to Sri Lankans until now. This was simply because the narrow mindedness of the people, as a nation and their pride. According to my point of view, Sri Lankans are arrogant and not flexible to the changes happening in the fast moving world. Even the leaders of the country who are the authority are being ignorant and let the people live with this 'frog in the well' concept. But they are smart enough to get their children experience the new trends and use them to be a step ahead in the global community.
It is inevitable that Sri Lankans cannot live in an isolated life moving away from the technological development happening around. Further there should be a clear understanding about the benefits the younger generation can achieve through an online platform. To give a simple example, Even a student who live in a remote area can access to the courses offered by many universities in the world with the palm of their hand. By maximising these distant learning facilities, the young generation will be benefited and will gain the ability to stand upright in the globalised world. Even in the school level, all the students get the opportunity to learn from one teacher because of online teaching. Further it is healthy for the teachers when compared to the classroom teaching because no shouting involved in it. It is true that it limits the teaching and learning experience to some extent but, it broadens our insights in many ways.
When I say like this there will be many arguments against this about uneven distribution of facilities, poor technology, wealth and life style of the people, cultural inappropriateness etc. It is true that all these things should be taken into consideration, and these are mostly the faults of the authorities who has power. My question is that, even with all these problems, are we not coping with the Covid 19 situation right now? Each and every school has started their teaching learning proses through an online platform and each and every university is conducting their lectures online and the students take part in these lessons. Even the evaluation is done online using different methods. So if we can have a clear reflection on the things happening around us, we can see even the examinations can take a different shape which can give an authentic account of the real ability of the student. Thus it is like we have been blinded for a long time and Covid 19 has opened our eyes to a new comprehensive world.
Thus it is left to us to decide weather to remain in our own wells with the 'proud history' we have or step out of the frame and let the future generations feel proud of us, who will be their ancestors, for being creative and innovative. Further we should all realise that for the benefit of our own children what we have to do is to teach them how to use technology effectively, without prohibiting the new trends for them. As adults, it is our responsibility to make our children aware of the new technology and make ourselves updated with its developments without depriving the opportunities of them.
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