Now is the age of internet and computing technology. And every sphere of our lifestyle are someway or other influenced or affected. Our education world is also undergoing lots of changes. One such prominent change or development are online classes. With the growing popularity and applicability of online classes, the very foundation and definition of teaching and learning are under immense transformations. 

For good or for bad, that question is beyond of much analysis as this is an evolutionary process with growing technology and world complexity. So we have to take it and adapt. But there are a lot of issues that are to be sort out and lot of optimizations that can be done if we really want to get positive results from these transformations from traditional face-to-face offline classes to almost “faceless” online classes. 

So let’s proceed and see why we can call it ‘faceless’ and what implications comes with the notion. Also we need to search and find proper optimizations and protocols if we want to make online class performance and experience successful and good.

WHY ONLINE CLASSES ARE FACELESS?

To understand this question I would like to ask you to recall your classroom…..in a big room, there are benches and tables, windows and doors, blackboards or may be whiteboards, lots of light and sound, a teacher and a lot many students like you. So you can think about the environment. You can see so many ‘faces’ all around you….some are smiling and some are not….even some may be crying especially if it is an exam day! Also you can see some more faces you really don’t always like to see so much perhaps….yes, the face of the teachers. But teachers are always so eager to see your faces….as what they eagerly want to know about your studies are all written on your faces. You don’t like to get caught and teachers don’t like to let you go uncaught.

So this is a very common scenery of a traditional school, college or tutorial class….you know it well. So this is what we can call an example of ‘face-to-face’ classroom where there are so many live ‘faces’ all around. Now you may ask what is so special about it, what face value does those ‘faces’ can carry?

HUMAN FACE A VALUABLE TOOL FOR COMMUNICATION

Yes, this is what physiology and psychology suggests. Our face are our most important tool of communication. Have you heard that even a pet dog can guess about the mood and motive of his owner or some other person by just looking at the face! 

Do you know our face have 43 muscles? And one of the main function of those muscles are to exhibit emotions! And there can be at least 21 different distinct emotions in which 6 are most fundamental or core emotions. Moreover we have most of our major “input” sense organs on our face only, viz. eyes for vision, ears for hearing, nose for odour and tongue for taste. And skin for touch is also there on our face like we have it on our hand and rest of our body. So thus we can see that face have got all the five “input” sense organs of us. 

So naturally we can bet that Nature have devised so much of engineering in our face not for vain, but to create expressions of emotions that will necessarily help us in communication.  So you can imagine the scientific standpoints of your expressions of emotions displayed via your face. So can we call this as the “face value” of a human face? And that value is not too less I suppose….some actors and actresses earn millions by their face value…just by faking some emotions on screen….!! Anyway….let’s get to the point.

So thus we can see that our face is such an important and indispensable tool of ‘silent’ communication by different expressions of emotions. I think you have heard it is said that “face is the mirror of mind”. So if that is anyhow be true, then you can guess how much value your face can play in your way to education if you believe that “education is training of mind”. Yes do you know Einstein’s quote that “education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”.

If that is true then mind and face both are so very relevant to education. By now it should be evident to you. So without going any deeper into human psychology and physiology, we now can assume that a face-to-face class is obviously an advantage for teachers to train the young minds of their students. But as I said before, due to growth in both technology and human life complexity, online classes are an inevitable evolution in education delivery methods that we cannot really do without. So we need to find out the shortcomings or deficit points and devise or discover methods to overcome and eliminate those partially or totally.

SYNCHRONOUS OR ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE CLASSES?

You can classify online classes in two different types, viz. synchronous online class and asynchronous online class. Let me explain it. When an online study material is prepared or recorded and uploaded to servers for future access through the internet by students at their respective convenient time, then this type of class you can call asynchronous online class.

The other option is synchronous online class where the teacher fixes a time for class by sole discretion or by students’ consensus, and then uses some online meeting or conferencing software application to capture teacher’s and students’ real time audiovisuals and broadcast them to all the attending students and teacher through the internet.

Thus you can call synchronous online classes are virtual online classes where you are technically within a class with all students and teachers but still you don’t have to go anywhere but stay at home.

Now when we are concerned about the negative aspects of online classes, it can be understood that synchronous online classes are still virtually closer to real life face-to-face classes than asynchronous online classes.

Thus synchronous online classes can become one potential option for a better online learning medium with less of issues related to teacher-student communication. But in spite of that, there will be a lot of difference between an online class and one traditional face-to-face class.

There can be many situations and issues in the course of study and education where teachers and students need better communication. Even many disciplinary related issues also are very relevant in face-to-face class whereas those issues may become irrelevant or non-existent in case on an online class, synchronous or asynchronous.

HYBRID ONLINE CLASS

Hybrid means combination or mixture.

Here it means a combination of two types of class, online class and traditional face-to-face class. So if for a certain course, if the combination of these two modes are taken then there will be better chances to avoid the negative points of only online class options. If both synchronous and asynchronous online classes are used also with time to time offline face-to-face classes then I think that will be the best education delivery option.

Science subjects and other practical based subjects are bound to have some offline face-to-face practical classes. This can be followed by other theory classes also for better. So thus we can avail the convenience of online class and beside that also get the effectiveness of traditional offline face-to-face class.