Getting Closer to your Mega Project Problem

Problem: Laptop Availability Issue during Online Learning.

Community who suffer:

Students who take online classes during this covid-19 pandemic. I am also an online learner and belong to that community which has laptop availability issues. I am doing a Masters in Educational Research and Assessment from the University of Punjab. We are taking online classes from 21st April 2020. We are 33 students who are taking online classes. Some of them have laptops but there are a majority of students who do not have laptops. Now we are in our third semester and we completed our second semester online. Mostly our fellows faced the laptop availability issue during online learning. Laptop availability is a major concern of them.

Interview on the issue:

For getting in depth or rich information I conduct an interview on a meet app. The screenshot of the meeting is here.

I shared with them an interview protocol and got their responses on this issue and this protocol is attached here Interview Protocol for getting in depth information on the issue.

In this interview I asked them open ended questions to get in depth data on this issue. Here, I would brief their responses for laptop availability issues. They faced this issue when they joined university but this issue affected them intensively when their face to face learning mode converted into online learning mode. They face this issue when they have to make assignments, presentations and more in their third semester when they have to practice data analysis software. They faced this issue in order to seek help from others, from their friends to submit their project or assignments and mostly they lost it to submit it on time.

Effects of this issue:

This issue affects them in so many ways; like they are not able to get skills or to run a data analysis software , they take the laptop’s work from their mobiles and in this regard their mobiles get hanged and not work properly. It affects their grade, it affects their learning because they did not visualize it properly on the tiny screen of their mobile. This issue affects their mental health most of them feel nervous, depressed, disappointed and they get tension that if they did not perform it properly they dropped out from semester. They feel insult they become disheart. Some of them receive favour from their friends and others but some of them did not get. This issue affects their eyesight and gives them headache, irritation, stress, fear of insult, tension, frustration, depression, and serious illness because they have tiny screens.

Reasons of the Issue:

The reasons of the issues are finance because in this pandemic their parents suffer to provide them other expenses they have not enough budget to buy their priorities and at the end of this interview they gave me some suggestions to sort out this issue:

Suggestions to resolve this issue by participants:

They said that are government help them or provide them laptop. Their University support them and give them space in order to get rid of this issue. There may a scheme who provide them laptops on half of the price or at low budget. There may be a collaboration of funds through which they can buy laptops.

My Experience:

That was my whole experience which helped me to get into the serious issue of University students they faced at this pandemic.

Benefit of this interview:

The benefit of this interview is that it helps me or suggests to me how to take initiative to solve this issue and soon I will work on it to resolve this serious concern.

Statement of the problem:

Mostly students cannot afford laptops for their learning purposes. They should have the opportunities for their immediate concern. There is clearly a need for such opportunities or schemes for students to get rid of these issues.