Beyond Does It Work: Meaningful Questions to Ask about Online Education Amid COVID-19
There are many meaningful and productive questions to ask about online education depending on the circumstance. Given that education systems and schools around the world are at the moment in the middle of either offering or deciding to offer education online due to the COVID pandemic, I focus this post on meaningful questions in this particular context.
Why Online?
This seemingly obvious question deserves a lot more consideration than it has typically been given because the answer appears to be simple, clear, and unequivocal: we have to since schools are closed as if online education is a natural and only alternative to schools. But there are a number of problems associated with this answer.
Online education cannot replace all functions schools play in our society. If the purpose to offer online education when schools are closed is to create a sense of normalcy or a sense that schooling is still happening, we need to be mindful of the other functions that schools serve but are not served by online education such as childcare, healthcare, free meals, physical setting for friendship and socializing, collection of trained education professionals, and other social services.
Online education can do a lot more than being a lesser version of face-to-face schooling. While online education cannot deliver free meals to students in need, it holds great potentials that f2f schools have been encouraged to take advantage of for a long time. It can help make learning more authentic, more relevant to the real world, more learner-centered. It provides access to resources and expertise beyond the immediate classroom or school. Students can collaborate with peers from around the globe and can learn from, with, and for anyone in the world at anytime. If the purpose of moving online is simply to make online education fill in the void created by school closures, it is a tremendous waste of the potentials.
There may be other options besides/in addition to online to educate students than converting f2f schools CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Beyond Does It Work: Meaningful Questions to Ask about Online Education Amid COVID-19