COVID and Online Learning

COVID and online learning hit just before the end of elementary school, right before I entered high school. Looking back, my experience matches what Dr. Valerie Irvine’s brief described as emergency remote learning rather than real online education. Since there was little to no structure or regulation, it became easy for students (like me) to stop paying attention. It was easy to get away with waking up right before the meeting, staying awake during attendance, and falling back asleep as the meeting runs. In other situations, most students would be playing video games as the meeting ran and the teacher would have no clue. In situations where we’d have to participate in class activities or answer questions asked by teachers, it was really easy to search up the answers and get through the work without actually learning anything. It honestly felt like I wasn’t using my brain much at all until I finally entered high school in person.

This experience made it clear that simply putting school online isn’t enough. All in all, it felt like we were sent home expected to follow the system as if it was normal school with little to no support. You couldn’t blame the teachers either as they were forced to be put into this scenario with no real training. This supports what the brief argues. BC was not prepared for the large scale move to digital learning. Without proper planning, training, and structure, online education will fail students rather than help.

Image by Chris Montgomery from Unsplash