The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Unleashed A Revolution In Education: From Now On, Blended Learning Will Be The Benchmark*

We’ve seen a varied response from educational institutions to the lockdown. In general, only those with a solid educational practice, with students who have access to connectivity and devices, and with staff already trained in the use of online teaching have been able to maintain their activity with minimum disruption, while others — the vast majority — have simply done the best they can under emergency conditions, hoping to weather the storm.

Classes that will continue as best they can, voluntarism, online teaching seen simply as a side dish, students without access to computers or an internet connection, teachers who simply assign essays based on reading material, or measures such as a universal pass have become sadly common.

The problem we face from now on is clear: what initially looked like emergency measures no longer are. From now on, we must prepare for life in a world where a vaccine for COVID-19 is going to take a long time to arrive, which means a great many restrictions on how we used to do things. For a long time, classes will be at half capacity, many students or teachers will be forced to self-confine, attendance will be irregular, and many methodologies we used before will no longer apply.

he change will be permanent: educational activity will no longer be face-to-face or online but a blend, able to move from one to another immediately fluidly, continually, through a student’s life, way beyond the school, college or university years. In today’s world, we are all required to continually learn and unlearn, and we will demand conceptual frameworks and tools for it. Institutions, academic directors, teachers or students who are unable to adapt will simply have no place in this new scenario.

This new scenario involves many, many changes. Firstly, we need to resolve the so-called digital divide: we must understand that every person who intends to access education, considered a universal right in many countries, must necessarily have access to a computer and an internet connection with reasonable bandwidth. This requirement will temporarily raise barriers to entry to education, and will be something that both institutions and governments will have to take into account through scholarships, grants, loans, donations, etc.

*This article wrote by Enrique Dash and published in https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2020/04/13/the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-unleashed-a-revolution-in-education-from-now-on-blended-learning-will-be-the-benchmark/?sh=fb92922536fd