scholarly journals The use of technology for online classes during the global pandemic: Challenges encountered by the schoolteachers in Pakistan

Author(s):  
Nadia Rehman ◽  
Wenlan Zhang ◽  
Mussarat Iqbal

The lockdown after COVID-19 outbreak not only harmed the economy but also shut down all educational activity, resulting in a significant gap in learning and understanding among students worldwide. This mixed method study was conducted to know the media used by the teachers to teach online classes and challenges faced by the teachers' during online teaching in pandemic, which has hampered continued/online education due to interviews from the ten government teachers. Data was transcribed, coding was done, and five themes were analysed. The study showed that teachers mostly use WhatsApp and zoom meeting for online classes. Skype, Voov meeting and smart school is also use as a media for online teaching and learning purpose. Qualitative data revealed that teachers faced numerous problems during online classes, the biggest obstacle was the lack of electric power and low internet speed, along with that the parents and students’ non-serious behaviour also affects the online education system. along with that lack of proper online forum, adversely affect the students’ concepts, knowledge, and communication with their teachers while using the internet as a learning tool. Teachers are overburdened due to the large number of online classes being offered, affecting the quality of education.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Gilbert S. Arrieta ◽  
I Ketut Sudarsana

<p>Education is a physical and interactive human activity. Primarily, teachers and students meet and take part in various learning activities in school. Other educational activities are held outside the school to augment what is learned inside the school campus. When technology developed and made online education possible, it was not fully embraced because education is also a social activity. However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced everyone to do things online including education. Unprepared and untrained for this new learning modality, educators had to prepare for a short period of time. Teachers underwent training through online webinars and conferences, and learning continuity plan was developed. Online classes for academic year 2020-2021 started six months ago which revealed the strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and issues in online teaching and learning. This study aims to find out the challenges encountered by the school leaders, teachers, and academic in the implementation of the learning continuity plan for online education including the resolutions made to address the challenges. Based on the study, it was found out that formulation and implementation of new policies, technological resources and capability of teachers and students, mental health and concerns of teachers and students, communication with parents and students, and school requirements. Different resolutions were made that addressed the concerns. It also revealed that the learning continuity plan is responsive to online teaching and learning but there are components that need to be enhanced.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-285
Author(s):  
Marius Drugas

The forced transition to online teaching and learning, caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, was sudden and difficult for many teachers and students who had to adapt to new ways of interacting. Our purpose is to describe some specific challenges and recommendations for online teaching and learning in the field of Psychology, especially for those who never had this kind of experience before. The quality of learning was not an issue identified by current students, but the content quality and the opportunities for social interactions during online courses were revealed as real problems by scientific research. Teachers are expected to act as facilitators, content experts, organizers, or technical helpers, and all these may become sources of frustration. The convenience of online courses for students could diminish the worries connected to learning outcomes, but we have to admit that not all teachers are prepared, willing or able to adapt to online classes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Yuli Fitrisia ◽  
Kartina Diah Kusuma Wardhani ◽  
Mardhiah Fadhli ◽  
Wenda Novayani ◽  
Dini Nurmalasari ◽  
...  

The pandemic that has hit the world has forced us to do learning indirectly or is often referred to as online (Daring). Online teaching and learning process requires some adjustments both on the teacher's side and the student's side. One of the adjustments is the need to seek technology and adaptation using technology. The currently widely used technology is online meeting services, such as the Zoom Meeting application, Google Meet, Video Calling via the Massager application, or other similar applications. To adapt to the technology, teachers at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Muhammadiyah 01 Pekanbaru strongly desire to deepen ownership of the Zoom application as one of the media used for online learning. This training aims to provide an understanding and hands-on practice of using Zoom Meeting technology to increase learning effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Marijana Prodanović ◽  
Valentina Gavranović

This paper focuses on students' perspectives on the quality of online teaching and learning environment, created, and organized as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, which unexpectedly interrupted the traditional face-to-face education context and changed the delivery and mode of classes overnight. The aim of this research is to gather information pertaining to students' learning experience in an online education environment, and to gain a deeper insight into the nature of online delivery of classes as perceived by students who had not had any similar learning experience prior to this newly created educational context. The theoretical framework of the paper states the latest EU education policies passed as an immediate and urgent response to the pandemic and its aftermath. This pilot study relies on a qualitative research which includes the analysis of a corpus of questionnaires taken by a group of 52 undergraduate students majoring in English. The main part of the questionnaire is composed of open-ended questions, and the respondents were asked to write their own answers, thus providing a valuable resource for the analysis; the other part relies on one Likert-scale question measuring the overall attitude of the respondents to the online learning. The students' answers are analyzed and classified into several categories according to their common denominator. Not only do the results show the students' opinions related to the benefits and drawbacks of online delivery of classes, the comparison of online and traditional form of teaching and learning, types of courses which are more suitable to be delivered in one of these modes, and the students' suggestions how to improve the quality of online classes, but they also shed light on different aspects of online teaching and its complexities enhanced by social and psychological factors involved.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Shafi AlDousari

Background: During this coronavirus outbreak, online teaching and learning have become highly common in medical education. The majority of students and professors have transitioned to this comparatively modern online learning model. While faculty members found the transition to online education to be overwhelming, they persevered. Aim: study aims to investigate the Kuwait Medical educational sector&#39;s capacities and obstacles in transitioning the education system to the online form. Method: This study used a close-ended survey questionnaire constructed on Google Forms and distributed to the participants via e-mail. The study used an online Google form for formulating the questionnaire survey, which was later sent to the participants via e-mail. Results: The results showed that most of the faculty members (53%) were satisfied with online learning. The most prominent difficulty emphasized by the faculty members (35%) was network vulnerability n online teaching. The majority of the faculty members (45%) agreed that transitioning to remote teaching is a big challenge and that there is inequality for different technology uses (56%). Conclusion: Online learning has been increasingly relevant in medical education in recent months. It has its own set of benefits for improving students&#39; knowledge and skills, and it may be used as an instructional tool in medical school.


Author(s):  
Michael Classens ◽  
Jennifer Sumner

The original deadline for submissions for this special issue was March 1, 2020, just days before the destabilizing and disorienting first wave of pandemic-related shutdowns in many parts of Canada. The (r)evolution in food systems pedagogy we were hoping to document and celebrate was promptly preempted by an abrupt transition to virtual learning. In an instant, teachers and learners alike were attending to a pedagogical revolution of another kind altogether. The enduring impacts of this upheaval remain unclear. In the immediate term, though, the shift to online learning presented a crisis (a hasty ‘pivot’ to online teaching and learning) within a crisis (the daily reality of living within the context of a deadly global pandemic). For many critical food systems students and teachers, these new crises layered on top of the already front-of-mind crises propelled by the capital-intensive, industrialized food system. Like peering through translucent nesting dolls, we squinted through layers of pedagogical disruption and pandemic to remain focused on the economic, social and ecological devastation wrought by our dominant food system, and for glimpses of the pluriverse of food systems alternatives that inspire and nourish us.


Author(s):  
Rod Byrnes ◽  
Allan Ellis

<span>Assessment is one of the key elements of the teaching and learning process. It provides teachers with a means of evaluating the quality of their instruction. Students also use it to drive and direct their learning. Online teaching and learning will continue to become more important to Australian universities in order for them to remain competitive and economically viable. In the online environment, assessment is no less critical than in traditional face to face environments. However, assessment risks being overlooked or at least marginalised in the rush to place course content online. This paper provides a snapshot of the prevalence and characteristics of online assessment in Australian universities during 2004. It highlights useful information regarding the use of online assessment in the university sector and illustrates that overall this crucial area is not being given the attention or resources it requires.</span>


Educatia 21 ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 193-200
Author(s):  
Alexandra Ioana Oltean ◽  

One of the main changes that occurred after the coronavirus outbreak and that represents one of the main measures taken in order to limit the virus spread refers to the conversion of the educational activities conducted conventionally into activities implemented by means of online platforms. The transition was sudden, unexpected and it still can be indefinitely prolonged. The main approaches encountered in the context of online education are asynchronous and synchronous ones. Our paper contains the results of an interpretive analysis of the opinions expressed by a group of 37 undergraduate students on asynchronous and synchronous online educational activities. We considered their opinions relevant due to the fact that since they started their studies at the university in October 2020, they conducted exclusively online activities. We explored students’ preferences and limitations of the both approaches, but also their wishes for the next period. Students expressed their interest in keeping online asynchronous and synchronous activities for the future academic years, at least for part of their subjects.


Author(s):  
Sanjita Das ◽  
Shilpa Srivastava ◽  
Aprna Tripathi ◽  
Saumya Das

Concerns about the health effects of frequent exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted from mobile towers and handsets have been raised because of the gradual increase in usage of cell phones and frequent setting up of mobile towers. Present study is targeted to detrimental effects of EMF radiation on various biological systems mainly due to online teaching and learning process by suppressing the immune system. During COVID-19 pandemic the increased usage of internet due to online education and online office leads to more detrimental effects of EMF radiation. Further inculcation of soft computing techniques in EMF radiation has been presented. A literature review focusing on the usage of soft computing techniques in the domain of EMF radiation has been presented in the article. An online survey has been conducted targeting Indian academic stakeholders’ (Specially Teachers, Students and Parents termed as population in paper) for analyzing the awareness towards the bio hazards of EMF exposure.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Serdyukov

PurposeWith the rapid transition of education from the traditional, classroom- or campus-based to the online format, there grows a need for not only taking advantage of online technology but also assessing actual and potential effects it can make on the learners, learning, education, and society. One of the risks inherent in online learning is its growing formalization both in the organization of the learning and in its process, which may gravely affect students’ learning, health, cognition, behavior and quality of the learning outcomes. It can also produce serious implications for the society. This article investigates the origins of formalization, its forms and stages, and discusses asynchronous, precision, and automated learning formats from this perspective. Among many issues, the impact of formalization on the learner's development and socialization is considered. The author offers a pragmatic solution for deformalization of online learning.Design/methodology/approachQualitative analysis of contemporary research literature, educational trends and practices.FindingsIt was found that formalism permeates online education in many ways. It is present in asynchronous, precise and automated learning and may produce significant impact on students, their learning, and society.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a qualitative research based on the analysis of current research literature and teaching practices.Practical implicationsWhile formalism in education is an unavoidable evil, its impact must be diminished. Critical analysis and practical recommendations offered may help improve online teaching and learning.Social implicationsFormalism affects both students' socialization in the online learning environment, and patterns of socialization in the society. It also impacts students’ cognition and behaviors. So, counteracting formalism may benefit the society's well-being.Originality/valueThe authors could not find any publications on this topic. So this is an original material which may contribute to improving online teaching and learning.


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