My Personal Experience with Remote Learning

When we first started remote learning last spring, I was excited because I had always wanted to try homeschool. I thought that this would be a relaxing experience. I never thought that COVID would last this long. I felt that doing remote learning would be more comfortable than going to school because I wouldn’t be surrounded by people I didn’t like and wouldn’t have to care about how I look. I excitedly thought it would make me more proactive because I could accomplish more work with fewer distractions. After having remote learning for these past months, I realize that I was so wrong.

Being remote, we students have lost our socialization skills and can’t meet people in our classes the way we used to. When students were in person, discussion groups would always lead to off-topic conversations making students enjoy going to classes. Now, when students discuss in the breakout rooms, no one talks, and eventually, everyone turns off the camera. I’m not too fond of breakout rooms because I don’t know many people in my classes, and the breakout rooms are incredibly awkward. The discussions and side-chats are part of the main things that I miss about not being in person because these small things forced me to interact with new people, and now we can just mute and hide behind the screen.

Remote students have constant access to their devices and can be easily distracted because teachers can not stop them from giving in to the many distractions. When we were in person, most teachers did not allow students to use their devices during class time, even just to listen to music. If teachers caught students on their devices, they could get written up and get detention. Personally, devices distract me from learning online, so I learn more in person because I am less likely to be on a device. I believe that not using devices in person allows students to learn more because they don’t have anything else they can do, so they are more proactive and concentrated on their work.

Lastly, when we were in person, more people participated and asked questions during class because they were more motivated to succeed. Being remote allows students to fake their understanding of class concepts because they can search everything up on Google. Additionally, being online causes many people to be afraid to unmute and speak. While if we were in person, we wouldn’t have anything to hide behind and would have to answer the question thoughtfully. This harms students because eventually when we go back in person and start testing like usual, we will not know anything.

Overall, these past months have taught us the importance of in-person education and to take COVID-19 seriously. From this experience, I have learned the importance and gained the appreciation of going to school. Additionally, I had learned how much more stress I get from learning online and trying to keep up my grades. Even though school is stressful, I hope that COVID-19 dwindles so that I can get a typical senior year next year. I am excited for when society can go back to normal so that everyone can go back to school again and no longer have to experience these difficulties in online-learning.