Until very recently, there used to be a never-ending debate on if and whether online learning and distance education would be as effective as traditional education system. But the rapid spread of coronavirus over the course of the last few weeks has put an end to this discussion. Most of the schools, colleges, and universities have realized the importance of providing online education and the benefits of remote learning, which could be essential in addition to their regular face-to-face lectures.
There are multiple benefits of online learning for students and most importantly, they would be able to make sure their academic progress is well on track even if their schools or universities have closed. And for institutions, providing online/ distance education could help stick to their originally scheduled academic calendar as much as possible during these unprecedented times.
By making use of multiple online learning tools, school management system and so on, institution administrations, teachers and students can ensure that there is no disruption to regular academics amid the COVID-19 threat.
Here are the five online education tips for institutions, students while social distancing due to coronavirus outbreak
1. Keeping track of students’ health through the Student Information System
With the coronavirus infection now spreading fast in several countries, it’s of utmost importance for the universities to ensure that they keep track of the health condition of all the students. This is where a tool like Student Information System (SIS) can be extremely useful as it helps to track the health condition of the entire student population and access their medical history. By closely monitoring their health, institutions could take precautionary decisions in case any student has been found to have been infected with any communicable disease. Not only this, since SIS will have the entire information of a student, it would be useful for institutions to get an update of all the students even in case of their schools or universities are closed.
2. Shifting to online lectures
To make sure that there is no delay in finishing certain subjects and courses in this academic year in case of a temporary closure of institutions due to COVID-19 outbreak, they could make use of Learning Management System (LMS) tools to shift to online learning. By implementing LMS, schools, colleges and universities can retain every feature of a traditional classroom virtually. Online lectures would offer students the opportunity to take a more flexible approach to learning and they can do it at their own pace if they wish to. Also, if needed, they could even conduct live online lectures as per their original timetable.
3. Ensuring uninterrupted student-student and student-teacher interaction through internal social forums
One of the major disadvantages for students and teachers during an unexpected closure of their institutions might be a sudden breakdown in communication between them. Student groups in the middle of a project might not be able to contact their teachers regularly and teachers, on the other hand, might be struggling to provide common announcements.
But to rectify this, institutions could come up with a common online forum where both students could be able to conduct discussions and brainstorming sessions while teachers can be in regular touch with students, come up with announcements and clarify their doubts.
(Classe365 provides online discussion platforms to enhance interaction between students and teachers. It also has a private social network for students and staff to share announcements and opinions with the privacy of a secure internal network)
4. Enabling submission of assessment tasks and assignments online
Schools, colleges and universities could ensure that the students could still finish their tests and assessment tasks and submit their assignments as per the original schedule by making use of LMS and other similar tools. As assessments, institutions could organize an online quiz for students while they can also have a common portal where students can submit their assignments and projects. Not only this, even the results for the assignments and assessments could be completely made online. Other than this, the solutions for the quizzes could also be posted later for the students to learn.
(Classe365’s LMS has features where institutions could post a varied form of assessment tasks including quizzes with MCQs, fill in the blanks, etc., and portal to submit assignments)
5. Schools could post every update to parents with the help of voice user interface
For parents, whose children are studying in lower grades, it is very essential for them to be updated about the decisions and strategies taken by schools, especially during uncertain times like this. Most importantly, schools could provide an everyday update about the COVID-19 situation in their city/ locality to the parents.
At a time like this, schools could impart voice user interface and help parents get immediate and personalized news and updates from schools just by conversing with their respective gadgets. For example, if a parent wants to know when the school is set to reopen, they could just ask the question to their gadget and could get an immediate reply.
(Classe365 has voice user interface with Alexa and parents and students can converse with Alexa to get personalized updates from schools and universities)
(We are currently offering LMS for free for two months for our new subscribers. Free LMS Module is offered for new customers and existing customers with active core module subscription who don’t have an active LMS Module subscription)