The outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) is impacting educational institutions on a global scale. According to UNESCO monitoring, “over 100 countries have implemented nationwide closures, impacting over half of the world’s student population.”

The emergency and confinement situation around the world has impulsed schools, universities, governments and corporates to adapt to turn their traditional on-campus class into online courses in record time. This way, hundreds of thousands of educational centers have finally adopted or started to make more use of different digital tools as part of their daily teaching and learning, to temporarily adapt to the best of its ability.

This sudden change of direction has undoubtedly brought many challenges into our education systems, especially the educators and learners that have shuttled themselves onto their online platforms to try to weather the storm. In this article, we will provide you with the best practices you should follow when implementing a successful virtual learning program.

Best tips for implementing eLearning during the corona crisis

1. Understand that we cannot turn completely digital overnight

The digitalization of the education system may arise in multiple opportunities, but they might also raise new challenges and needs. There are a number of factors that schools, universities, corporates, and governments need to consider before implementing any digitized forms of learning. One of them is undoubtedly the availability of their financial resources. The institutions considering to take this move must also show relatively high agility to adapt to a new environment. Additionally, the faculty must ensure educators’ and students’ willingness to embrace digital technology.

The immediate solution that most institutions are developing today is adopting streaming practices into their classes. However, this is a temporary solution to which we should not be referred as eLearning. We need to acknowledge that no educational center is able to transfer their physical system to the digital environment in one fell swoop.

Therefore, those faculties that have been overlooking or postponing the digitalization of their classroom content and communication until some days or weeks ago, should not expect to acquire or build online platforms that are going to rejigger their classroom and meet all their needs and expectations from scratch. Behind successfully digitized institutions there are years of effort, planning, and leadership.

2. Understand students’ necessities

First of all, we need to get to know the very diverse situations that our learners might go through during their day, especially these days of uncertainty and fear. Some students might not have access to a computer or laptop, and they only possess a smartphone; others might have family responsibilities or need to find a new job or attend a doctor’s appointment.

Teachers and management might think that the easiest and most effective decision would be to transfer the traditional in-class lessons into live-stream video classes. However, it would not be very realistic to believe that the students will be available to show up and participate in the virtual classroom at the same exact time every day. The truth is that every one of us is currently experiencing changes in our everyday life. Not only should we facilitate everyone to access the content and resources of their digital course from anywhere, but also anytime and from any devices.

3. Make learning engaging and fun

One of the biggest challenges teachers face when going online is getting and maintaining the attention of their learners, especially because teachers or the students are unfamiliar with certain applications and dynamics of online teaching. That is why we suggest you practice the following techniques that will help you to get the attention of your classroom:

• Engage and support students online via online posts, forums or social media, and participate in discussions. This way you will encourage students to participate themselves, as well as make their experience more personal.

• To maintain an effective learning community, show your students virtual presence from the very beginning of the eLearning course and let them know what timeframes you will be available online and how to contact you outside of those hours.

• Provide continuous and constructive feedback during the eLearning process, and encourage group feedback through different collaborative exercises to increase their engagement.

• Blend traditional online learning styles with different collaborative educational tools and content formats, such as audio and visual material.

• Acknowledge the importance of mobile devices for learning and make sure your eLearning content can be easily accessed via smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Learners will appreciate accessing your course materials anywhere and anytime and you will maximize your teaching methods.

The fundamental role of educational technology right now

What is clear is that this unexpected happening has made a very vast number of institutions, including educational, rethink their priorities and objectives. In the months of uncertainty ahead, education technology (EdTech) will have a fundamental role in our society because the way the education centers see it is abruptly changing from complementary or alternative solutions to crucial and urgent services.

At EdTick we consider that the current health crisis is an excellent opportunity to explore new paths in eLearning: there are more and more students adapting new forms of online learning with great success, at the same time as there is a vast number of companies willing to facilitate this revolution with innovative effective solutions.

If the experience is positive after all, there might be a drastic modernization of the worldwide education sector.

How we can help you at EdTick

If you are an educational institution looking for eLearning software, we provide a large list of EdTech tools and features and benefits so you can compare their main differences and book different demos and make a final decision.

Join us and help us shape the future of education!