Have you ever imagined not going to school and having classes at home online? This has come true, and it is still continuing until these days. Students are having online classes at home, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

▲ Picture of a student doing online class.

Many students would not have heard of online learning before the pandemic. Online learning is an education system that takes place on the Internet. It is often referred to as "E-learning" among other terms. Online educational programs first emerged in 1989, when the University of Phoenix began using CompuSever, one of the first consumer online services.

As a lot of students worldwide are having online classes for the first time, there are various problems with it. Students who do not have any devices that can be used to do online learning are not able to have online classes. As a result, it causes learning gaps among students. On the other hand, there are positive things about online learning. Because online learning is done at home, it has the advantage of the flexibility and self-paced learning which means that it delivers more scheduling options, and students can control the amount of material they consume as well as the duration of time they need to learn the new information properly.

Opinions split among experts, too. Some experts say that online learning does not offer the same benefits as in-person learning. Karen Aronian, as an education expert, said that inline learning cannot offer the same amount of benefits to students, unlike in-person learning. On the controversy, Christine Greenhow, an associate professor of educational technology in the College of education, said that online learning can even be better if it is combined with other elements where students go at their own pace, on their own time, and are set up to think deeply and critically about subject matters.

New technology always has positive and negative sides. However, as time passes, it develops and gets better. Many believe that it will be the same with the online learning system.

By Siwoo Han