The Shift to Distance Learning

If you thought information was readily available online before you are sadly mistaken. The global Covid-19 pandemic has led to a HUGE shift in information moving to be even more accessible online, if you can believe that.  On Friday, March 13, 2020 all schools closed their doors in hopes to stop the spread of the deadly virus and moved all learning virtual, or distance learning. When schools closed down we were told that we would be closed for a minimum of 14 days and maybe a maximum of 30 days. Well, here we are almost a full year later and still distance learning. 

Distance learning invited everyone into each others homes and personal lives. As educators we now have a firsthand look into the reality of our student's home lives. Students were given laptops and wifi hotspots in order to grant them access to their lessons and teachers. Teachers had to scramble to make all of their lessons digital and administration had to scramble to make everything accessible to everyone. We were allowed a grace period to adjust to this change and we were all prepared to hunker down and push through the 14-day quarantine. However, some companies saw that the 14-30 day timeline was a false reality and used this as a way to allow their technology platforms to thrive. 

Zoom removed all of the time restraints on their calls to allow teachers and students to be together in a virtual pseudo classroom. Google, who had previously introduced Google Classroom, found a way to make their Workspace applications more accessible to all students and staff. (Side note: My school utilizes Google Workspace to the max and it is honestly amazing to see.) Google Meet became another Zoom-type video conferencing platforms used by schools to engage in virtual in person lessons.  Companies like Kahoot, Padlet, and Edpuzzle, to name a few, came forward and offered their services and platforms to educators as other ways to engage students. 

Students were forced into using technology to access their lesson, their teachers, and their friends. This proved to be a far larger struggle than originally thought. Schools quickly learned that not all students have access to computers and internet and they scrambled to get the resources needed to provide their students with the now basic needs of education. This opened eyes to the reality that education is not accessible to everyone as so many wanted to blindly believe. This makes one wonder, if computers, wifi, and virtual lessons would have been accessible for all students prior to the pandemic would this shift have been easier to make?

Teachers had to scramble to learn new technology platforms, transfer all of their lessons to these various platforms, and then teach their students how to access and use the platforms, all in a matter of days and weeks.  There was little information or resources offered by administration, who were dealing with their own fires, when the shift took place. Teachers had to rely on the internet to learn how to use the internet. They had to utilize YouTube and Google to find their resources and learn how to use them.

Still, the integration happened and distance learning became the new reality. So now that we are here, can we ever go back? I believe the answer to that question is: no, we cannot.  School districts and schools themselves have invested too much money into integrating and accessing technology to ever return to education as we knew it prior to March 13, 2020. Even when students and teachers return to the classroom they will continue to use the technology that they have invested so much time in learning and using, I believe.  

We know now what can happen if the world had to stop and shut down for the safety of everyone. We cannot put on blinders and repeat the same mistakes. So moving forward, I think the best thing we can continue to do is to keep utilizing the technology and platforms that we have been using, making technology accessible to everyone, and really teach our students and staff how to best use the various tools out there. We have invested so much time, money, and energy into this we cannot change that all now. We cannot forget how far we have come.