Make all education 100 % digital in just a couple of days? Maybe a ones in a life-time-challenge due to Corona. Here is how to achieve it, with great result. On the road you can even save time, and get something really useful out of it yourself. Now, don’t you dare to miss this opportunity.
There is a reason why “fight, flight, freeze” explain what do happen, not what should happen, during chaotic times. So; I am not the one to tell how you should react due to the Corona-virus-issue. Not even how you will react. But here is how you “could” react when/if the idea of making all your education 100 % digital in just a couple of days become the issue.
Harvard, MIT and others are already trying this idea at this very moment by the way. Campuses, and classrooms are shutting down, but education must be up and running. Is that even possible? Of course it is.
Educators already experienced in E-learning most likely already have ideas on how to handle this challenge. Let them just play. They only need time at this moment. Don´t stand in their way.
But how about educators not that well experienced in E-learning?
Well, whatever you do: do Not suggest them to do video-recordings.
It is not likely that a non-digital educator that suddenly creates a lot of video-recordings in a short time will do great videos. Few of us become great if we suddenly do something unknown. And fast.
Another reason for not doing video-recordings is that it takes time, and time is a crucial thing if you want to achieve lot of great result in just a couple of days.
Well, you might prefer spending night-time on this matter the upcoming days. But it is difficult to do great stuff, if you don’t get any sleep.
If videos then even are needed here (I´m not convinced, why should it?) it would therefore be far better if that educator at this moment spend time finding videos already existing. YouTube is huge and full of great stuff.
Send a link to the videos you might need to the students, instead of doing your own.
An educator knowing the topic is most likely far better in finding “this great video” than the students themselves.
Remember that this is also the reason why Google, Bing, or Baidu, even exist. They sort things out for us in the digital space. Finding the needle in a heystack is an art.
But, neither Google, nor Bing, not even Baidu, are good in knowing what is the best video to be found on for instance YouTube concerning a certain educator’s specific topic.
An educator often also has something interesting and relevant to say about a video made by someone else (you therefore also can have great use of “terrible” videos).
There is a reason why commentators in sport exist. They help us understand things better than what we are able to do without them.
Most educators on the globe of today are also used to a certain kind of digital communication tool for their own personal use – in their job or privately.
Facebook, Microsoft Teams, an LMS-system, Skype, Instagram, Twitter, SMS, Mail, Messenger, LinkedIn, Slack, Zoom, AirBnB, FaceTime, Snapchat, Craigslist, P1.cn, Google, Trello, RunKeeper, Flickr, Waze, Telegraph, WordFeud, Xing…whatever.
Use that tool. Use in particular the tool you yourself feel most acquainted with, no matter which one it is.
If you use the tool you are already used to, the likelihood of you being able to handle it well in a new kind of situation is very high – like for instance in a digital educational-situation.
Most tools we can name here are also already able to use for everything from chatting to distribution of text, videos, documents, links, and live video-broadcasting. You can for instance ask people things via these tools, and they can respond. Asking and responding; that is a discussion.
Such kind of activities, that these tools support, are actually in most cases the only activities we need, in order to do education.
Most students on the globe nowadays are also already well digitally developed. Often: far more than educators. It means that the students easily adapt to you, but not necessarily the other way around.
If we think about the Corona-issue in this way, we also buy our self some time for the upcoming days. It is time that we can have use of.
And then we can start thinking about how to use the tool we have chosen, in order to achieve the activities we want/need, in order to achieve…“learning” – which happen to be the reason why “education” even exist.
Adding to all this: It is not likely that everything that at this moment is off-line will go back to offline when the Corona-virus-issue have blown over. Far more likely is that we at this moment in time see a permanent big leap forward for digital education as such. Then how big? Well, that we will know later. But big.
When these times then are over: it is very likely you will have use of what you experience at this very moment in time.
It is not unlikely that this challenge is a ones in a life time thing. Don’t miss the opportunities embedded in it.
Try to skip fight, flight and freeze. We can do better than that.
Disruptive Education 