Author: gyannloaded

Posted in Spotlight

ONLINE EDUCATION: PROS & CONS

Posted on by gyannloaded

By Saakshi Sharma

Online education is a type of educational instruction that is delivered via the internet to students using their home computers. During the last decade, online degrees and courses have become popular alternative for a wide range of nontraditional students, include those who want to continue working full-time or raising families. Most of the time, online degree programs and courses are offered via the host school’s online learning platform, although some are delivered using alternative technologies.

Indian schools have gone online to compensate the loss of studies due to the Covid 19 lockdown. Most of the schools and colleges now deliver online lectures and assignments to their students and keep their knowledge updated.

Courtesy: Business World

From coping with basics like internet connectivity and India’s notoriously undependable power supply to more structural issues such as curriculum and teaching methods, educators have come under tremendous stress since India’s schools began shutting down sometime in mid-March.

During social distancing and ‘stay home’ order, the numbers of ‘Webinars’ and online ‘learning’ has increased. Universities like Harvard, Stanford offered their MOOC (Massive open and online course) free to the students.

As India Today reports, Universities and online platforms have started sharing academic resources for free. It appears that there is no dearth of such online resources of academic value.

However, the difference between classroom teaching and online teaching is real. Does it pose a significant challenge to teachers or seem to be an opportunity?

Academic institutes gradually initiated online meetings and classes in March and started coping-up with the situation. But many teachers were less conversant or had apathy towards online teaching.

It is not only an opportunity for teachers to explore different methods of teaching, but also for students to utilize their potential and learn new things. Teachers have regularly updated themselves to stay with the present world.

Growth drivers and Challenged in online education

Montgomery College provides following advantages and disadvantages of online education.

Ten Advantages of Online Courses: 

1. Online courses are convenient.

2. Online courses offer flexibility. 

3. Online courses bring education right to your home.

4. Online courses offer more individual attention.

5. Online courses help you meet interesting people.

6. Online courses give you real world skills.

7. Online courses promote life-long learning.

8. Online courses have financial benefits.

9. Online courses teach you to be self-disciplined.

10. Online courses connect you to the global village.

Ten Disadvantages of Online Courses:

1. Online courses require more time than on-campus classes.

2. Online courses make it easier to procrastinate.

3. Online courses require good time-management skills.

4. Online courses may create a sense of isolation. 

5. Online courses allow you to be more independent.

6. Online courses require you to be an active learner.

7. Online courses don’t have an instructor hounding you to stay on task.

8. Online courses give you more freedom, perhaps, more than you can handle!

9. Online courses require that you find your own path to learning.

10. Online courses require you to be responsible for your own learning.

Posted in Know your Area

The luggage girl

Posted on by gyannloaded

By Padma Dolma

Every one wants a life for themselves and for that they pay a price, a piece of their life, a precious time, a valuable contribution.

Just like us. Every student of Ladakh has a dream of studying outside the town and I guess I’m also one of them.

Like every year the migrant birds Go to migrate to places they go for the summers and go back to place of their winter residents, we are just like them, we travel every year back to hometown in summers and stay in other cities in winters or any other seasons other than the summers.

I come back to my hometown during summers and realizes that the traveling and migrating from place to place at a specific period of the year I had to return back carrying a luggage which is my ultimate cupboard, my closet,which is my only companion in traveling back and forth. Its quite lucky for those who have their own permanent cupboards and closets to decorate all to themselves, unlike me and any other kid from Ladakh. We only come back twice or thrice a year and sometimes never in a few years.

For what?

To achieve the dream and to live in that dream we have to pay the price of staying away and carry our closets all along with us whenever we are summoned back and forth. I wish it was Hogwarts where I’d go, and if it was Hogwarts I’d gladly leave my house without any regrets, but unfortunately we go out in a cruel world where people are more dangerous than Voldemort, we really can’t live a normal life unlike any other big city kid who envies us for having the permission of staying out, doing shopping for ourselves, traveling alone, in other words they just like the freedom we have of staying away from our parents which they don’t have now. But I see it in a different angle where we become vulnerable sometimes being mature or acting like one.

I’d say we have to become mature at a very young age to look after our own mess. The torment of living alone without parents by ones side is not a thing that anybody can bet with.

But they obviously don’t know about the behind the scenes life, as every attractive world looks beautiful, shiny and tempting from outside but inside struggles are the real thing which is a fact they don’t know about yet.

For me at first I enjoyed the freedom, truth to be told, but later I missed my old life where I don’t have to worry about the bill payments and there deadlines. That is something which we have to do when we are actually independent but for us being financially dependent on our parents yet we are independent in our own ways.

So, I envy those who really don’t have to worry about such things at the age of 15-20, but also we’ve become mature quickly on such terms when we have to live alone and don’t have anyone to look after our needs.

Sometimes I broke down, sometimes I cry and no one can understand my struggles other than me myself, so I learned how to get up even when I fall deep down in the world which I’ve created in my own mind because it’s me and only me who can stand up for myself that’s how I’ve learned to live this long struggling, learning and standing up for myself.

That’s what we do, don’t we?

Image courtesy: PNG fuel

Posted in Reviews, Tech Reviews

AMAZON Fire TV Stick

Posted on by gyannloaded

By Saakshi Sharma

Amazon fire TV stick is a digital media streamer recently launched by the Amazon network.

Its a whole new upgrade to the experience of watching TV as earlier on the benefit of VOD or video on demand could be availed only by those who had a smart TV but now anyone can convert their television set into a smart one by just plugging in the fire stick, provided it has an HDMI port.

It is a great replacement for cable or set up box.

Apart from streaming videos of your choice, it also allows you to play music, games, install apps, browse the web and a lot more.

Another magnificent feature of this product is the voice enabled remote. The remote comes pre-installed with Alexa that helps you to find the titles you’re looking for without typing and just saying it out. Costing around Rs.5999/-, looking at the amount of features the company is offering, its a great add-on to any home.

Image Courtesy: @amazon.in

Posted in Movie Reviews, Reviews

COLLATERAL BEAUTY

Posted on by gyannloaded

By Saakshi Sharma

Collateral Beauty is an American-drama film released in 2016 starring Will Smith, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Peña and many more.

Though it was released almost four years back, it holds a very important message. It is a masterpiece that shows how beautiful grief could be.

It’s an emotionally heavy film that is based on the whole motto of connecting love, time and death.

The movie says these are the three basic elements that connect all the human beings to each other around the world as we long for love, wish we had more time and fear death.

The story starts with a grieving Will Smith, who has recently lost his child, writing letters to the universe, demanding answers from the cosmos to explain why he had to suffer through such an unbearable tragedy. As his friends and colleagues see him wasting his life away while dealing with their own problems, they plot a plan in order to deem him unfit in front of the board members to gain control of the company which they all started together.

Unaware of the plans universe has for them, while trying to pull their friend out of his misery, they heal themselves along the way too.

This movie beautifully portrays that there’s no timeline to get over the grief someone you loved so deeply but time does eventually heal all and even the most hideous of the circumstances have their own collateral beauty!

Image Courtesy: Hbowatch.com