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Ten years ago, who might have thought that a day will come when willingly or unwillingly all the educational institutions will need EdTech as their savior. It has been an efficient, effective, and sole teaching tool for the last two years. It has turned out to be a prominent teaching source. Just like every technological advance, EdTech has its pros and cons.

Pros

1.      Easy access – With easy access to the internet all across the county, EdTech can reach far-off places in our country. Even the lack of infrastructure at elementary schools can no longer stop the students from education by choosing EdTech or online teaching.

2.      Skilled teachers – To use the technology at its best, the teacher must be highly skilled and technology-friendly. Teachers must collaborate their knowledge with e-learning tools.

3.      Enhanced creativity- Students can exhibit their talent and creativity by participating in various online quizzes, debates, group discussions, extempore, role plays, intellectual competitions, and art & craft exhibitions. It not only helps them to realize their skills but also acts as a stress buster.

4.      Remote learning – Due to many reasons like lack of resources, infrastructure, basic facilities, and personal reasons many students cannot attend schools. They also have no chance of attending day schools. EdTech is an effective teaching method where the children can study anything from anywhere. 

5.      Real-life applications – We don’t simply learn by hearing, or writing, or cramming but by doing it by ourselves. EdTech helps the students to visualize many phenomena of everyday life and their applications. Students can use such experiments to bring about ideas of their own. It will not only make them skilled but also allow them to follow that knowledge in their lives.

6.      Going paperless – We know that global climatic changes are a result of various human activities. Traditional teaching somehow requires loads of paperwork that is one of the reasons for deforestation. If we opt for a paperless option by choosing EdTech, we can minimize the damage to some extent.

7.      Endless supply of learning resources – EdTech provides the learners with immense knowledge collected and cumulated at a single platform. It gives in-depth content to the learners. 

8.      Globalization of education – Education or learning must never be constrained to a region. The knowledge needs to be spread vastly for the betterment of as many people as possible. EdTech has crossed the boundaries across different nations and aims at providing the students with immense knowledge to give them a broad perspective. 

9.      Automation of tedious tasks – EdTech uses technology and hence turns out to be a time-saving teaching method. Rather than spending energy on tedious, manual work, both the teacher and the learner can now focus on teaching and developing more skills, respectively.

10.  Learn with varying pace – In a classroom, not every student has the same understanding level as the others. A teacher cannot focus on every student and teacher with their grasping capacity. EdTech allows the student to learn and get evaluated at their own pace.

Cons

1.      Distractions by data mishandling – The parents cannot keep an eye throughout on the children. What if they misuse the internet and data without even focusing on their education? 

2.      Looking at screens – After continuously sitting in front of the screen, it causes strain to the eyes. It can affect their eyesight as well as lead to a headache. 

3.      Needs funding – Starting and working out an EdTech is not an easy task because the technologies are expensive. Indeed, EdTech will not require high infrastructure but the access of technology to a large population and hiring skilled teachers need a good amount of money. 

4.      Self-motivation and accountability-The self-motivation and self-interest of the students make them accountable to attend an online class. The teachers can interact with the students in e-learning only if they are interested in listening to them. Due to the lack of self-motivation, they might attend the sessions just for attendance without even learning something new.

5.      One-on-one interaction in the classroom – During an offline class, a teacher can have face-to-face interaction with the student. It creates bonding between teacher and learner, as well as between the peers. While in EdTech, depending upon the tools used, it will not always assure that the teacher will interact with every student.

6.      Disconnect from social interactions-Education not only imparts knowledge but also teaches how to survive in the real world. The students must know how to co-operate and interact with people around them. Due to EdTech, they solely interact with their peers, hence turn socially disconnected. 

7.      Unreliable learning resource – Due to a lack of reliable learning sources, students might perceive wrong information regarding any subject. EdTech offers multiple sources of information, so evaluation of the correct data is necessary before teaching the students.

Just like every side of a coin, EdTech also has its pros and cons. But here, the side with the pros seems heavier than the cons since it fulfills the ultimate aim of education. With more discoveries, highly efficient and cost-effective tools will come into the market to provide quality education to the students.

We would like to know your views on the same. Do you think, EdTech is the best way for the students? Can you suggest any other benefits or the limitation of EdTech in 20th century?

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