In this Covid-19 pandemic phase, all teaching and learning process is done by online learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in human history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 200 countries. Closures of schools, institutions and other learning spaces have impacted more than 94% of the world's student population. There is a fear of losing 2020 academic year or even more in the coming future. The need of the hour is to innovate and implement alternative educational system and assessment strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to pave the way for introducing digital learning. This article aims to provide a comprehensive report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on online teaching and learning of various papers and indicate the way forward.
Research methodology: This is a review paper.
Results: This article present on the psychological impact of online learning on students.
Internet use, Online learning, Covid-19, Teaching (Academic)
The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has spread worldwide, affecting almost all countries and territories. The outbreak was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The countries around the world cautioned the public to take responsive care. The public care strategies have included handwashing, wearing face masks, physical distancing, and avoiding mass gathering and assemblies. Lockdown and staying home strategies have been put in place as the needed action to flatten the curve and control the transmission of the disease [1].
The coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease that affects the education system of different income level countries [2].
Education is one of the important things in human life. Education is one way to prepare good human resources because education can create the next generation with good quality and compete with other countries in the world. However, because Covid-19 pandemic, many education institutions enclose the activity because of this virus. All students have a new activity in learning that is online learning, where the learning activity runs by the internet. It means that between the teacher and the students do not meet face to face, but they meet by internet by using platforms of learning, such as WhatsApp, Zoom Meeting, Google Meet, Ed Link, and many more. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued health protocols to prevent the outbreak and delay worldwide spread.
The World Health Organization (WHO) [3] on March 11, 2020, has officially announced that coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pandemic after it covers 114 countries in 3 months and infects more than 118,000 people in the world. The first COVID-19 case has reported by Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on December 31, 2019, in the Hubei Province, China [4]. The coronavirus pandemic is quickly spreading and affecting 213 territories and countries throughout the world. In the world about 30,086,319 of total cases, 21,833,645 of total recovered and 945,962 of total deaths were recorded until September 17, 2020 [5]. According to (Medical News Today, 2020), the researchers believe that coronavirus is spreading exponentially and many countries are locked in their education system, and enforcing their people strict quarantine to control the spread of this highly contagious disease. The governments focus on fulfilling equipment, organizing medical institutions, and laboratory centers, identification of the virus, training health workers, and creating awareness for their people.
Education has been the pillar of development of every country, so education is principal to the development and growth of all countries. The education system has been affected by several challenges ranging from changes in the education curriculum to closing down the education system due to widespread pandemic diseases [6].
Internet is a source of learning to help the teacher to explain the teaching material to enrich the student's knowledge. The internet can help the teacher send the message of learning quickly and easily. Right now, the internet is very familiar with the students, especially in online learning in the Covid-19 pandemic, there are some skills for the students in using the internet in online learning [7]. They are:
1. Web: The facility to show text, picture, sound, animation, and other multimedia data by internet.
2. Email: A letter which can be sent by internet or provider.
3. Browsing: A technical term of internet which has a meaning to investigate the internet world.
4. Upload: The data transfer by digital communication tools from a smaller system.
To control the coronavirus spread, most countries have been working to encourage parents and schools to help students continue to learn at home through distance learning [8].
The school's closure due to COVID-19 may not affect students equally. Students from less advantaged backgrounds highly suffered during COVID-19 than advantaged students [9].
The governments advised students to learn from radio and television lessons that can be accessed at home. The radio and television lessons may work for some children and students in urban areas, but most parents in rural areas have not accessed to radios and television lessons. For example, in Ethiopia, more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas with limited or no access to electric power, so that it is challenging for students in rural areas to learn from radio and television lessons [10].
The schools in urban areas are teaching their students from a distance by uploading assignments, books, and reading materials through Google Classroom, e-mail, social media, and other applications. In some urban areas, even if distance learning is provided due to a lack of monitoring strategies some students may not use it properly. Private schools sending learning materials directly to parents through social media platforms. There is a difference between rural and urban schools and the public and private schools to keep their students learning from home. Also, public school teachers and students have limited or no access to the internet [11]. The school closure brings difficulties for students, families, and teachers of developing countries. Students from poor families with lower educational levels and children with poor learning motivation suffer most during coronavirus. The children may have higher dependence than younger students on parents and they need guidance in their learning process, internet access, and usage of digital devices and applications (Tzifopoulos, 2020). Furthermore, poor and digitally-illiterate families' children are further suffering [10]. There were already inequalities before coronavirus in access to quality education between students in urban and rural areas, and students from families with higher and lower socioeconomic status. School closures could further increase the inequalities between students [6]. Students in rural areas and from disadvantaged families lack access to technology, internet access, and educational resources [9].
In conducting online learning, many advantages and disadvantages affect the students. According to [12], some advantages of online learning for the students are:
Accessibility: The students can access everywhere and anywhere. It means that the students can choose the appropriate place for them to learn because they were not limited by time or space grouped into a comfortable, educational environment theme.
Personalised learning: The students can determine by themselves about the learning style, aim, content, individual skills, and current knowledge. By E-learning, the individual can plan their own learning. It has the potential to develop confidence and self-esteem, motivate, reduce the barriers of the students in learning, improve the learning experience, personalize the learning experience. Also, they can develop their ability in ICT skills.
Develops cognitive abilities: The students of E-learning have higher achievement levels than their counterparts. They can learn everything only with the click of one button because many providers of learning can help the students easier in studying by online learning.
Cost-effectiveness: Online learning can reduce learning costs because the students do not need to buy book, travell, and college context. Since it can be carried out at any geographic location and there are no travel expenses, this type of learning is less costly than learning at a traditional institute.
Promotes research: The students can produce something of extremely high quality. Publishing the students' work can help form a classroom legacy and archive of a successful product.
Basic computer skills: By online learning, the students will always be familiar with computer because they mostly use it to do some assignments. So, their ability in Information Communication Technology (ICT) will improve.
Equal opportunity to all: All students are equal, no matter if they are a disability or come from a different race, religion, caste, sex, creed, and others. Online learning gives the same opportunity for students to study together and become smart, although in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Self-pacing: Every student has a different ability to accept the materials from the teacher. By online learning, the students can choose their own pace without the time restriction. The Learner is free to complete the course work according to his own will and he can take as much time as he requires without being termed as slow by his peers.
Globalization: Online learning means technology grows very fast because the student's study by using the internet and other tools as the way to follow the development of technology. Besides that, the teacher also studies using the platform of learning, searching the new information, sharing ideas and knowledge, interacting with experts, and using the online database.
Besides the advantages of online learning, it also consists of the disadvantages [12], they are:
1. Poor communication: since the students learn by using online learning, they do not have the opportunity to face their teacher face-to-face. It makes misunderstanding or less perception about the material given, making them have poor communication with the teacher.
2. Feeling isolated: The students must join the online learning without any friends beside them as usual. This condition makes the students stress because they cannot interact directly with friends or teachers. Studies show that feeling of isolation was a huge stress factor that prompted students to drop out.
3. Lack of motivation: Online learning makes the students lack motivation because they easily get distracted by other things. Sometimes they get great spirit, support from friends and the teacher at school. However, this condition makes them less of spirit to learn.
4. Lack of fund: Points out that technology's downsides include cost, hardware issues, internet problems, production of course materials and worry about the availability of funds.
5. Lack of quality: The result of the students by online learning sometimes has low quality. Non-online faculty has problems concerning the credibility of online courses. Besides that, the instructors give less preparation in giving the materials. It makes low quality on the result of learning.
So, online learning has advantages and disadvantages. The most important is how the teaching-learning process must be run well, although in the condition of Covid-19 pandemic, in order to keep the teaching-learning process safe.
Online learning happened because of the Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world at the beginning of 2020. The educational world must do lockdown and students should study via online learning. So, as the solution to this situation, the students, parents, teacher, and all the people grouped in the educational world must adapt to a new normal condition. It means that one year is the time to practice in receiving this condition because if the learning is conducted face to face, it is hazardous, especially the students as a future generation. Online learning is done because our government wants that learning process to continue in pandemic conditions. After all, education is vital for human life. People, especially students, must be accustomed to online learning because no people know when the Covid-19 pandemic will end. New normal is a solution for the culture shock of the students.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this Paper.
All the authors contributed equally to prepare this article, read, and approved the final manuscript.