The Struggles of Online Learning

From getting disconnected from the Internet to not having enough motivation, I am having a hard time getting used to virtual learning.

When virtual learning rst started in March 2020, I thought it wouldn’t last long; I was even excited for it. But as time passed and we were still doing online classes in May, the hopes of going back to school in August started to fade away.

I am a junior now attending Tranquility High School virtually in rural Tranquility, 45 minutes west of Fresno, California. When the 2020-2021 school year started, a lot of things had changed.

We were told we had to log into Google Meet meetings every day, and some teachers made it mandatory to have our cameras on. If we didn’t, we’d lose participation points, which would a ect our overall grade, or they would mark us as absent for the day.

We are now on a block schedule, spending an hour and a half online in just one class and, while it’s not that di erent from meeting in person, having these classes online is a di erent story.

Staying connected for an hour and a half is di cult for two reasons. One, staying connected for that long makes the Chromebook very slow and hot. Two, there are days when my Internet will completely disconnect halfway through a lesson. I gured this was because my little brother was also in school, and multiple computers were connected to the WiFi. We have a really cheap WiFi plan, and because of this, it can’t handle multiple devices connected at the same time.

While I can log on to my phone and watch videos, it takes a long time to get a document loaded during class. Because of this, I started to do the work after class. This caused me to not pay as much attention in class as I would like to and to lose motivation. There have been multiple days when my WiFi didn’t connect at all, and I had to use my mobile hotspot. It worked for the rst few days, but it just wasn’t as fast as having the WiFi connected.

The digital divide is just one problem of virtual learning; trying to learn from home is another. Living in a Hispanic household, there is a lot of noise; there are many distractions while I’m attending classes online. Not having a separate place to work and relax has also a ected me more than I thought it would, which ties back into my lack of motivation.

When attending school in person, I would get home and start working on my assignments. But being at home, there isn’t much separation between schoolwork and housework. I would put assignments o until the last minute because I’d be doing other things like cleaning the house or babysitting my siblings.

If I’m not doing that, I’d be working in my room where my bed is right in front of me. Instead of doing my work, I’ll either be lying in bed going through my phone or napping.

With the lack of reliable WiFi connection and lack of motivation to do my schoolwork, I’ve come to realize that virtual learning isn’t something that works for me, and I look forward to the day when we are meeting in classrooms again.

by Hazel Ventura