Distant Schooling Developments Since The Onset Of COVID
Trends in eLearning + Stay up to date with tech
This is a question many educators ask themselves as our world slowly but surely moves online. Out of necessity or preference, we now have to adapt to new ways of teaching online. The transition from a physical to a virtual classroom posed new challenges for many educators. However, recent advances in learning technologies have brought new and innovative solutions. The trends we see surprised us. Let’s take a look at them.
Major distance education trends since the pandemic began
Here we’re going to examine three * surprising * trends we’ve seen since schools around the world were forced to implement distance learning processes.
1. Students plan to continue taking online classes after schools return to classrooms
According to a report by Best Colleges, 49% of students enrolled in online courses plan to continue even after their campus returns to in-person courses. For their own reasons, many students appreciate the distance learning environment.
2. ⅓ University administrators say they will continue to offer distance learning options even when they are not needed
Recent information from educationdata.org shows that 33% of college and business school administrators plan to offer students both online and offline educational options, even after governments eased social distancing requirements. If you want to teach at this level, you will almost certainly need to keep up to date with the latest developments in distance learning.
3. Teachers could become the new influencers on social media
The journal published an article earlier this year about how education will be changed forever. Your best prediction is that teachers will become “massive social media influencers”. If you choose this wave, you need to know about EdTech, as well as new media marketing and communication trends.
From what we see here, it looks like distance learning will stay here. How can you get used to the online learning environment? The trick is to take a full look at your processes and familiarize yourself with the technology.
This will keep you up to date with distance learning
With the right technology, educators are now able to agree on more than just distance learning as temporary mitigation until we are “normal” again. On the contrary, we have the means to deliver instruction in a way that better suits today’s students.
How do you make the highest quality distance learning your reality?
Enlarge your current teaching processes
It is important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for distance learning. What works for one school – or a single class – can be completely different from the requirements of another. You have to be brutally honest with yourself.
The last thing you want is for your new technology to be a problem rather than a solution. This is why it is important to first evaluate your current teaching processes and think critically about how new technologies can fit into them. You can start by asking yourself:
- What is currently working for you and your students?
- * Which processes did not translate well into a distance learning environment?
- Which teaching formats do the students best deal with?
- Are some of your students currently being left behind?
Once you’ve got your answers, it’s time to start looking for tools and resources that will help you fill in gaps in your current teaching process and optimize distance learning for your students.
Online teaching aids and resources
Here are some tools and features to consider when deciding which technology to include in your distance learning strategy.
Student discussion
Students and educators still need to be able to communicate with one another. There are many different ways you can make distance learning easier for students to discuss. To choose a tool that suits your teaching needs, consider the following:
- Would you like discussions to take place in real time?
- Would you like students to keep coming back to the discussion?
- How are you going to get students to keep the conversation going?
If you don’t need real-time discussion, many online communication tools have a discussion forum feature that students can use to leave comments or ask questions in their spare time. This could be a great way to encourage students to open up and share ideas without having to speak in front of the class.
Live communication tools like video conferencing software and Chat for Education have been a hit for real-time discussion and collaboration. You can also stream your lessons and field questions live from the same platform. You can also increase student engagement by adding a custom messaging feature to your live streams. This would facilitate real-time discussion and help students communicate with you and each other.
Virtual classroom
Restoring a common space for teachers and students to collaborate is likely something you want to prioritize. In a virtual classroom, you can offer your students a learning experience that is similar to the physical classroom environment with which they are familiar.
A Learning Management System (LMS) is your central point of contact for an effective virtual classroom environment. Most modern LMS platforms allow educators to organize study materials, post assignments, and make announcements in one place. On some web-based platforms, you can even incorporate video conferencing and live document sharing to create a truly collaborative learning environment.
You can even add a bit of fun to your virtual classroom by using LMS gamification features like badges and achievements to drive student engagement. These tools can significantly increase engagement, especially participation.
Mobile apps
The educators may not have been ready for such a rapid digital transformation, but the students probably were. We live in a time when 95% of students in the US have or have access to a smartphone. This opens up new opportunities for technology learning.
Mobile learning apps can, for example, improve and support learning practices by providing instant access to learning content at any time and from any location. They also have the benefit of being a learning experience that better aligns with how students interact with others outside of the classroom.
Many learning apps are based on a central dashboard that every student can log into and access the learning material assigned to them. Students can also be encouraged to study on their own if the app has its own curated library of lessons and resources.
Cloud storage and file sharing services
You cannot teach a class without sharing resources. When it comes to distance learning, this is best done through file sharing. Email is an option for sending and receiving files, of course, but using cloud storage and file sharing services makes the process easier for you and your students.
With an online repository of study materials in one place, you can quickly share files with students or colleagues. Files are stored in a secure, cloud-based location with fully customizable access rights, so you can choose exactly who you want to view and edit certain files. Another characteristic of cloud storage services is that multiple people can work on documents at the same time – ideal for attracting students to group-based activities or projects.
Course creation tools
There are a large number of course creation tools that you can use to create new digital content for your students. With these course creation tools, you can create full-fledged courses that add new interactivity to your teaching, such as: B. integrated quizzes, different user scenarios and video functions. This helps the students not only to immerse themselves in your course content, but also to stick with it.
A few popular authoring tools allow you to reuse existing PowerPoint slides and convert presentations to HTML5 mobile format. You can then expand the content with additional functions such as the functions already mentioned such as quizzes. This way you can efficiently create new and exciting learning processes for your students.
Conclusion
Current trends show that distance learning is not going anywhere anytime soon. Indeed, it seems that distance learning may become the new normal. The distance learning environment can be a place for innovation. With a little research and the right technology, you can revolutionize your teaching and improve your students’ distance learning experience. What online teaching tools and resources could you and your students benefit from?
