The “online tutorial” term is increasingly being heard lately. But how should an online tutorial really be and in what should it differ from a traditional one?
Technology now dominates everyone’s lives and the time we spend online is gradually increasing. Televisions hand over the baton to websites, young people leave the vacant parks and playgrounds behind in order to be gathered in an internet café and play a web game with friends. Acquaintances are made via Facebook, which along with other social networks, are defeating bars and cafes, while most of the people are choosing or are being forced to work in front of a screen.
Therefore, there is an imperative need to keep up with development and adapt education to what the new era requires, hearkening the clamor of young people for innovation and development.
Unfortunately, the Greek schools are progressing at a considerably low pace, while this weakness has led the Greek society to invent and then implement the term and idea of tutorials. The Greek society was the first worldwide to have implemented this term. In a tutorial, we want our children’s educational needs to be met, as the school itself is unable to do so.
According to a proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. This should be the role of the contemporary tutorials and especially the online ones, which represent a more modern education. An online tutorial is required to fully simulate the traditional tutorial with the online e-learning course in order for the transition to this to be done effortlessly. Following this, an online tutorial should exploit even more technological means to maintain students’ attention and direct them to using the Internet sensibly.
Cyberspace could provide us with the solution in every query. Why not urge children then to take advantage of this opportunity? Why not converging teachers into online tutors in order to facilitate young people? We ought to be concerned, especially when we know that only a few clicks could even provide every student with the opportunity of attending online Harvard courses. This inevitably leads us to a devaluation of the traditional school and tutoring.
I agree with all the agony screams, which are increasingly being heard and command us to release the web from all our activities. I do not agree though when it comes to online education. Let South Korea conduct online games tournaments, which are filled with thousands of spectators and millions of euros as prizes and let us present the Internet to our students, as a self-improvement weapon rather than a subculture.
Ksinas Pavlos
