Education

We are living in such a rapidly changing era, which humans have never experienced before. These days, I definitely feel how it is going. This Wednesday my first son begins to study in all online courses at UTM. He would have had to live in Mississauga if he had studied in class, but now the commuting is no matter, and he can stay at home and learn. Fortunately, every course which he should study in 1st year is theoretical. He can choose live, online courses or video type courses. Even a lot of worldwide online course universities are rapidly spreading. If students want to listen to the best lectures of prestigious universities, they can apply to those universities without being constrained by where they are living.

However, still many subjects cannot be delivered by online study. For example, the fields which require gathering, such as music, dance, sports and the fields with laboratories or medical treatment. I had to try to do singing lessons online; however, the result is 40% less than in person lesson.

Distance education will absolutely be the main way of education of the future after people experience this pandemic time. It will be much cheaper and more convenient. People can easily reach out to good experts and get diverse information while saving money and commuting time.

If so, how about communication? My second son made bunch of friends on a game website. They are from all over the world, chatting all day without limit of age. He says to me it is the new generation's socializing. Even they have food together chatting online. Whenever I communicate with friends by Zoom, Google or Skype, I feel it is not enough. We cannot listen to the natural sound of voice, feel others by shaking hands, laugh together or know the warmth of people.

It is clear that distance education brings us a lot of convenience, but I hope that doesn't take up too much of our lives.