The COVID-19 pandemic started out slow, and eventually took over the world and changed it as we know it forever. It brought entire cities to a standstill, decimated whole nations and has single-handedly caused economic disruption on a scale rarely seen before. Humans have been confined to their homes, wherever they may be, in an attempt to prevent the further spread of the deadly virus. The normal functioning of all things human-comprised — governments, educational institutes, healthcare facilities, commercial businesses — have taken a hit for the worse. What started out as temporary measures have long since transitioned into seemingly semi-permanent ways of being.
As a student completing her final year of graduation and applying for masters programs, the ‘temporary measures’ that have most affected me personally were those related to education. Educational institutes shut down in rapid succession before countries announced lockdowns to keep people at home (for example, in India). Even in countries with no complete lockdowns educational institutes were some of the first large gatherings to be regulated (in Singapore, for instance). In the current situation with nation-wide lockdowns in place, it has been repeatedly stressed that schools and colleges are most likely going to be the last to reopen.
Due to the rapid spread of the pandemic, and given its timing with regards to the academic year, most educational institutions had no choice but to either suspend the remainder of their terms, or move to online learning platforms. Residential universities sent their students back home and moved to using Zoom as their primary medium of tutelage. What went on to become a global joke among students, especially the Graduating Class of ’20, was a shift in the normal forced as a pragmatic response to a global pandemic. In this article I will take a look at this shift in what was considered the normal for education, the significance of the new normal, and how the new normal might evolve into the standard normal.
Having served as a Teaching Assistant during my final semester in the midst of the pandemic, and continuing to be a student of my (now online) university, I can say from personal experience that the transition to online learning was uncomfortable and difficult for all parties involved. Our professors and teachers, for all their vast wisdom and scores of knowledge, still struggle with basic tools of internet-based learning like Google Classroom, Google Meet, Zoom, Google Sheets and so on. While in-person meetings could replace any lack of understanding in a class-room, important human interactions were lost as a result of conducting classes via Zoom.
Zoom, an app that was not very widely heard of, suddenly shot up in popularity as it became the medium of choice for conducting large classes online. Other apps exist for the purpose of video conference calling but unlike Zoom they were not designed for organizational meetings. Google meet is a simple video-calling app with a live messaging application, like most video calling apps. Zoom was unique in that it mimicked the actions of a real classroom, with options to virtually raise hand, clap, privately message someone in the call and so on. Because of its unique features and easy to use interface, Zoom became the go-to online class hosting platform.
While online classes could not replace the learning environment of an actual classroom, they eventually proved to have some important advantages over normal classrooms. Online classes meant that students could take their classes from whatever situation was most comfortable to them. It omitted the time consumed in commute and allowed students in compromised situations to take their classes in environments that allowed them the special provisions they needed. Students were more comfortable in their homes, with their pets, with food, not restricted by any dress-codes. On the flip-side, one of the biggest and most consequential disadvantages of online education was its dependence on a good internet connection. Lack of internet access affects students unequally, and as a result of this students’ education was impacted disproportionately, and through no fault of their own. Needless to say, like any disaster or calamity, this pandemic affected different of sections of society differently, and education was one of the spaces where these differences were most conspicuous.
Innovation in the time of Corona
While most businesses have tanked due to the world coming to a standstill, some markets have benefited from the situation. Stay-at-home entertainment services have seen a rise in consumption — like online video games, online streaming platforms etc. Delivery services of goods of all kinds have also seen an upsurge. Academic courses available online have seen an increase in consumption due to people having more time to spend at home and on their devices.
Among the global student community there are ever-growing concerns regarding the possibility of continuing online education over the coming year. My friends that have applied and been accepted to Masters and PhD programs are grappling with the reality of the pandemic, and its effects on their future study plans. Since many countries are in lockdown and most countries have imposed travel bans, travelling abroad to pursue educational degrees commencing in August/September 2020 seems like an unlikely possibility, unless the virus is brought under control with exceptional speed and efficiency. Many educational institutions are looking at the possibility of starting academic programs online, because the only other remaining alternative is suspending classes till the pandemic settles down.
Given the current situation, and how the situation is predicted to evolve, there are not many fields as timely as online education for entrepreneurs and innovators to delve into. The spike in the consumption of online courses has continued and will continue for many months. It is very natural for students to be sitting with their devices after attending mandatory classes wondering about what other courses they could be pursuing, now that they have nowhere to go and ample free time on their hands. The pandemic has proven to be an opportunity for everyone all over the world to become a student again and learn skills that they couldn’t before due to a lack of time.
The challenges that innovators face around online learning are many. The first and foremost being that online learning relies solely on a stable internet connection — access to which is still a privilege and not a reality for a significant portion of the world. In these circumstances it is important for innovators looking to make a difference in online education to remember two components of design thinking: empathy and inclusion of the margins.
Let’s start with empathy. Empathy in the Design Thinking context refers to having empathy with the consumer. This would refer to placing oneself in the customer’s shoes and thinking like them about problems and possible solutions. Empathy will enable an innovator to design a product that is most accurately suited to meet a consumer’s needs. For instance, for an innovator trying to find a way to make queues in public spaces more bearable, no strategy is going to be as effective as actually standing in line with other people and feeling the discomfort of waiting for long periods of time in lines. The experience of the innovator might help highlight micro-triggers that make the experience worse for consumers, or small redeeming comforts that need to be amplified. For an innovator to truly understand what happens during the process of studying an online course, it is imperative that they take an online course themselves to understand the challenges and difficulties in taking an online class.
Inclusion of the margins, however, is the more ethically important principle to keep in mind when thinking about online education. As has already been highlighted earlier in the article, in the case of continuing normal education online, certain populations of students are more adversely affected than others. Students belonging to poorer households, belonging to geographically remote locations or areas compromised because of other political, natural or social factors — all find themselves in environments with unstable, and sometimes negligible, internet connectivity. It is important for innovators to keep these margins of society in mind while designing modes of online education. Education in itself is already a privilege instead of a universally available right, and the shift to online education makes the glaring inequalities even more acute.
In conclusion….
The problems faced by innovators in the field of online education are many. Lack of internet, lack of available infrastructure and maybe even lack of motivation on the part of students. Online courses have not held the same credibility as courses taken in person in educational institutes. But with changing circumstances academic institutes all over the world have been forced to move to digital learning modules with no return to traditional teaching in near sight. Whether by choice or because of compulsion, for better or for worse, online learning has now become the new normal and will continue to remain the normal for the foreseeable future. For the benefit of the student community, more so than for profit, innovators have the social responsibility of making online learning more accessible so as to bridge the distance between education being a right, and a privilege.
