The Online Student

The Online Student

( Abid Hussain Rather )

The world-wide coronavirus pandemic has coerced us to adopt new ways and techniques to cope up with its adversities. Every human soul is trying his best to minimize its adverse impacts on diverse aspects of human society by creating new ways of living and performing daily routine activities which otherwise would have come to standstill due to ongoing pandemic. As it has been said necessity is the mother of all inventions, obviously we would have not been introduced to new tactics and approaches to life in the absence of this pandemic. But it is a common know fact that no new invention comes sans its side effects in the absence of its proper management and utilization, so was the case with new methods and ways of living formulated during this period. Likewise other departments, our education department shifted to new methods of teaching learning process and besides making the common masses and traditional students aware about the new mobile teaching apps, they were introduced to many new terms of online teaching. Now our traditional classroom teaching has changed to online teaching and accordingly our common student has transitioned to 'online student'.

Our 'new online student' is vastly different from 'old common student' in many aspects as he is availing the benefits of modern scientific technology in his learning process by attending online classes through various mobile teaching applications, appearing in online examinations and finally achieving the goal of promotion from one class to another though he hasn't entered the school premises due closure of educational institutions from last two and half years. This new worldwide group of students try to attain knowledge from their teachers through electric signals flowing into their smartphones through multiple teaching applications instead of attending real classrooms. The standards of intelligence and punctuality for online students are different from those of traditional students. Among traditional students, the intelligent, punctual, bright and regular students attend their classrooms daily without any failure. They remain alert in the classroom and listen to their teachers attentively and note the important points of the lecture. Further they give satisfactory answer to the questions asked to them by their teachers. But these parameters have changed for online students. Now cunningness is preferred over intelligence. Those students who remain virtually present in online classes instead of being absent in reality are marked as punctual and brighter. Now glowing of green signal before their name on the mobile application is marked as their presence though they may be enjoying some other activities like online gaming, online chatting or video watching. Weak internet signal or malfunctioning of teaching applications is made an excuse for not being able to answer the questions and miscommunication between student and the teacher. The duty of remaining alert in the online classes is shared between the online classmates in different subjects so that other fellows may enjoy secondary activities or enjoy an unconscious slumber without any disturbance. The old traditional students were well aware about moral values and used to maintain discipline in the classroom but our new online students have forgotten the lessons of morality and try their utmost to create mess in the online classrooms. They are totally incontinent for the teacher as the teaching learning process is virtual. Few weeks ago a video had gone viral on the social media where a group of male students was seen making strange voices in an online classroom as soon as teacher was trying to start the lecture while as a group of female students was seen singing Kashmiri folk songs in an online classroom. Despite repeated attempts by the teacher, the students were totally uncontrollable for the teacher and finally he had to end the class. Such videos are the vivid examples of modern online students creating indiscipline in the online classrooms. 

When we look at the homework performance of the online students, the scene is totally different from that of traditional students. Traditional students used to complete their homework individually and prepare their notes secretly so that no other student could compete with them. But our new online students are friendly with each other in this matter and just one hardworking student completes his homework and shares its images with his other mates. To the surprise of teachers, every students appears in the next online class with his readymade homework which totally lacks individuality and originality. Finally our traditional students had to work hard for appearing in the annual examinations. They had to study twenty four hours of the day to secure high marks but securing marks in the online examinations is the easiest thing for modern online students. As soon as the teacher sends link for question paper to the online students, they swiftly search for the answers in the Google and their textbooks and send back their answer scripts before the allotted time. At this stage, some online students find themselves lucky enough as their family members are much cooperative with them in this connection and help them in searching the answers on internet and later feel proud for their collaborative success. Online copying in the examination and sharing photocopies of their answer scripts through various medias is a friendly gesture of online students towards their fellows beings.

As we all are well aware about the fact that pandemic has not ended yet and it will take a long time for the re-opening of educational institutions. So currently there is no scope for real teaching learning processes and we have to go with virtual methods. Our traditional students have to remain in the absentia mode for time being due to pandemic and we have to go with the online students. But the question arises how long our online students will make fun of online teaching learning process and when they will be serious about it ? How long they will go in their life with their easy earned success ? They need to take this process in a serious tune and inculcate and redevelop their moral values. Discipline and mutual interaction in online classes is must for smooth and fruitful online teaching learning process otherwise all this is going in vain. They have to awaken their consciousness and be honest with their online studies. They must bore in mind that they are cheating themselves in the long run and ruining their career by cheating in online classes and examinations. Our online students must remember that the future examinations of their lives are not as easy as their online examinations rather they have to work hard to be successful in their lives as they are living in a world where competition is talk of every tongue.

( The author is a member of JKIFTS Columnists Council and can be reached at rather1294@gmail.com )