“Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most cost-effective ways to educate the world’s rapidly expanding workforce.” 

The basic structure of education has been more or less the same since the very beginning of the concept of formal education. The curriculum and subjects have gone through some ramifications but the idea of a teacher trying to impart knowledge to his fifty-odd students in a confined space has always been the same. It has been drilled so deep into our conscience that we don’t even stop to think that is there a better way? Was the Brick and Mortar approach envisioned by our ancestors was so flawless that it doesn’t even need a critical eye examining it? Brick and Mortar education system with its many benefits has some fatal flaws that are always looked over or at least they were. Until the IT revolution happened and people started looking at things from different perspectives. The opportunities a digital model offered made us see the flawed that for the lack of a better alternative were always looked over.

The Brick and Mortar education system provides an atmosphere of learning and growing. Besides the classroom learning, the peer interactions, student-teacher bond and the variety of co-curricular activities a traditional classroom offers have no alternative. But for every benefit, the tradition classroom presents there are opportunities it had to let go, that maybe an online classroom would have been able to grasp.

An Online Classroom brings with itself a flurry of opportunities. In this ever-evolving world, the evolved classroom shows some reals potential. I am listing a few of those that I find most appealing: –

• Learning at one’s own pace- It is no secret that every child is unique. They have their own strengths and their own weakness. And to cater to this uniqueness ,an online classroom provides learning at the pace a child requires. So that is left behind at the same time no child has to wait around when he could have been learning so much more.
• Customisation of lessons- Every child has their own sets of interests and fields of potentials. Online classes offer any topic a child wants and when he wants it. A child in is preteen can learn technical skills from a platform like LEAPWATERS.com  for which he’d have to wait for 5-6 years in a traditional setting.

• Cost-Effective- A tradition classroom offers many opportunities and facilities provided you have the deep pockets to pay for them, meanwhile e-learning platforms can and do provide the same courses and lessons for minimal costs.

Other than the aforementioned benefits there are several other benefits that an Online Classroom presents like Interactive Course Material, Easy Revision and Revisits, Reduced dependency on Teachers and much more.

We can easily see that both these approaches to education have their own sets of benefits and drawbacks. An ideal education system would be a mix of these. The character and formal structure of a Brick and Mortar education system and the exposure, interactiveness and customisation of an Online Education System. A child having a formal education in a classroom and the boost and nudge in the direction of his interest and potential via an Online classroom would be an individual equipped to take on anything life throws at him.