Abstract:

E-learning has been a saving solution for continuing the education process in the pandemic context. Thus, it is necessary to consider for the future a combination of face-to-face education with technology-assisted education, blended learning already proving very efficient. But at the same time, it is useful to rethink the educational process, based on the opportunities generated by the pandemic period. It is also necessary to adapt to the constantly changing needs of students, as well as to student-centered teaching. Teachers can also come up with a greater variety of courses and different teaching methods and, of course, the feedback from the students is very important. More emphasis should be placed on the interaction between students and teachers, the interaction being beneficial for the consolidation of knowledge.

Digital technology can be seen as a powerful ally for better education. Therefore, the use of digital technology such as cloud computing, flipped classroom or blended learning brings more efficiency in the educational process. At the same time, in online education, the work tasks for students should be reasonable, adapted to their learning style, and the evaluation methods used should consider more flexibility.

In our article, we aim to analyze the quality of online courses, showing the disadvantages reported by students during the pandemic. At the same time, we point out the advantages of online education. For this we will use questionnaires addressed to students with a technical profile from Alba Iulia. The main problems related to online courses reported by the surveyed students are: difficulties in using technology, lack of physical communication, lack of social interaction and feedback. Some of these shortcomings can be mitigated by combining face-to-face education with online education. Some of the advantages of online courses refer to: accessibility, convenience, quick distribution of didactic materials, ease of accessing materials, orientation of information to several people at the same time, use of interactive materials. Thus, in some of the universities in Romania, in the next period, the transition to mixed education is being followed, that is, a period of several weeks of online teaching, followed by face-to-face teaching. We consider useful such a strategy of combining the two types of education in the current context, in which the problem of resource rationalization during the winter period arises.

Keywords:

Education, technology, Higher education, online courses.