The inability of majority of both teachers and students to transform into a digital learning and teaching environment acts as a major challenge in e-education.
With the closing of schools, universities and higher education institutes due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, digital education methods were requested to be adopted to avoid disruptions to the national education system.
“One of the main drawback that I see in e-education is that most of the teachers and students tend to continue practices followed within a traditional classroom in an e-education environment,” said Director, School of Computing, University of Colombo, K.P Hewagamage in a webinar organized by the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) on Saturday.
Apart from that the lack of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy within the country and the lack of experience in using IT tools also acts as a major barrier which fails an individual from adopting the benefits of e-education.
E-education allows students to work and learn in one classroom despite of the dispersed geographical location. But the unavailability of one or more resources such as a laptop, personal computer, Internet connection and other infrastructure makes it difficult for both teachers and students to collaborate.
“It is important to have a good teacher-student relationship in e-education so that the difficulties faced by each party can be understood and discussed,” Hewagamage said.
He also said that in order to overcome these challenges student oriented education methods needs to be adopted. Proper and efficient learning materials should be prepared by teachers with the incorporation of multimedia in order to gain students’ interest and attention. Furthermore the exam oriented education in the country should be modified to suit the e-education platform such as how to conduct and monitor examinations online, the restrictions that needs to be followed.
Hewagamage further pointed out that another more important factor is to change the mindset and attitudes of the people towards e-education. “Most of the people in the country are reluctant to adopt new technological methods in education mainly for the challenges that arises with it, however it is important to face these challenges and overcome them,” he added.
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