THE NEED OF THE ONLINE EDUCATION IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR FOR DISTANCE LEARNERS

Author Name: 1. Dr. Neha Vij

Volume/Issue: 05/12

Country: India

DOI NO.: 08.2020-25662434 DOI Link: https://doi-ds.org/doilink/05.2025-11964533/UIJIR

Affiliation:

1. Lecturer of Sociology, Centre for Distance and Online Education, University of Jammu, Jammu, India.

ABSTRACT

Online education or e-learning is a way to deliver quality education to students using digital technologies. It can be a need of the hour because it can meet the needs of students especially distance learners with different learning styles and family backgrounds. This paper will discuss how online teaching has become the need of the hour especially for distance learners. What are the new advancements that have taken place in the online teaching? Why we need online education for distance learners? And why we adopt the new technology for distance learners. Now everybody is well aware of online education as it has become the new normal for us. Pandemic has changed many things in our lives and one of them is the way of teaching and learning. The biggest challenge for teachers is to maintain continuity in student engagement and tracking progress. The situation of pandemic has somehow forced us to accept online teaching as a tool of learning which hitherto has gone unnoticed. But gradually we are becoming used to it. And in fact students are finding it interesting to use Zoom, Google classroom, Google meet, Microsoft etc. provided they are given a proper environment and guidance. The new advancements in online education open new doors for the students who are socially, economically, geographically backwards in many aspects. Being a distance education teacher I am not only imparting online education to my students, I am also learning so many things which I don’t know before. So online education is not only a new beginning or new step towards the advancement in the distance learning but it’s a step towards digital development also.

Key words: Online education, distance education, distance learning, distance learners, Zoom, Google meet, Google classroom, Technology and Internet.