Editorial/Opinion  •  November 29, 2022

Written by Faye Navarro, Sofia Jimenez, and Rich Ann Ricafranca

The learning modality has changed as a result of the pandemic, which has caused many other changes that we must adapt to in order to carry on with our lives. The government decided to make school online and require students to study at home rather than attend classes and interact with other students in order to protect them from the Covid 19 virus. Of course, students are finding it difficult to adjust to this change, but they still pursue their academic goals. The benefits and downsides of each learning method are obvious.

Here are some disadvantages of online learning:

• Students' self-esteem is low. This situation was created as a result of the majority of students not being able to interact with others more frequently and instead concentrating on social media, which is now flooded with numerous examples of people who are, in their eyes, "perfect" and to whom they frequently compare themselves. They also tend to be less engaged in class since they are frightened to make errors and risk being teased due to their lack of confidence.

• easy distraction of students. Because of the ease with which students can become distracted by the internet, they prefer to play games or scroll through social media instead of listening to their teachers, which prevents them from learning anything and forces them to turn to the internet to find the answers to their tests.

• There isn't enough face-to-face communication among students. They are prevented from going outside for their protection, which is why this occurs. Since students are too afraid to offer, instructors are unable to ask students for feedback since they cannot see whether they are listening to them or see if they are learning anything.

• One of the drawbacks of online learning is that teachers cannot teach their pupils what is wrong and right, especially to young kids, which results in a limited sense of discipline among students.

Some advantages of online learning:

• Through online learning, students, and especially their parents, can save money and time. This is because students don't need to travel to school in order to learn, and they can save money because online learning doesn't require students to buy materials; instead, they are simply instructed to use the materials they already have at home.

• Online learning can make us feel less anxious during class discussions since it gives students time to consider their responses and encourages them to educate themselves when they can't understand a certain topic since we can now easily research any topic on the internet.

• Governments believe that online education can slow the spread of coronavirus since students rarely leave their homes and don't need to interact socially with others, which prevents the contagious Corona virus from spreading.

Most of the students have a hard time adjusting to new learning modality so we interviewed some students that are blended. They also claimed that blended learning is more enjoyable because the ingredients of a very successful learning is collaboration and blended learning really helps students to communicate with their group mates and learning facilitators. Students also enjoyed it because they saw an opportunity to bond with their friends easily. However, some students also claimed that it is exhausting. Because they have a long time before they can interact with other students especially to those students who doesn't have friends yet, and also commuting from house to school is tiring for some students and in fact blended learning is high maintenance since parents need to provide their child food and money to bring and student also need a money for their transportation so can they arrived at school.