2020: Year One in a New Era of Education
Worried skeptics can point to studies showing that online learning may stunt reading growth up to 5 months due to poor engagement. Or that lack of access to school resources has been shown to widen opportunity gaps already created by race and income.
On the other hand, proponents of remote learning can point to high levels of engagement among online graduates, faster learning times, and long-term increases in school affordability.
Neil Fassina Ph.D., president of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), posits that rather than a temporary lift, we are in fact at the start of a permanent “long-term uptick, where digitally-enabled learning [will] become a quality, viable and first choice solution.”
In other words, digital learning isn’t a substitute for traditional education—it’s the next frontier.
Regardless of one’s opinion, it’s clear that all hypotheses on distance education have begun a trial by fire in the form of millions of students—from early childhood through graduate school—taking to virtual schools en masse this fall. Analyzing this once-in-a-generation testing ground, we set out to analyze and pick the winners that will define the new paradigm of learning.
However, those examples illustrate that while videos have existed in classrooms for some time, they were often seen as supplemental treats—not the backbone of the lesson. This means many teachers now still view their video lessons as modified, recorded versions of their in-person classes—rather than a new teaching format altogether.
A better approach, suggests Tony Bates, author of Teaching in A Digital Age, is to use videos in one of at least thirty five ways that wouldn’t be possible in a physical classroom. These video lessons involve everything from dangerous live experiments involving explosions to expensive demonstrations such as human brain dissections.
Furthermore, videos are easily replicated and distributed, allowing the “best” lessons—those proven to have higher engagement and retention—to filter up and and be effectively “pooled” by educators in a way not possible when teachers and students were bound by physical proximity.
“The idea is instead of having individual faculty members trying to do something on their computer, we get together a group of really good resources—really good media producers—and produce some excellent standard simulations that can be used across any particular field,” says Bates. “I think that’s where we’ll see a lot of development over the next few years”.
Bates isn’t alone in that opinion. A 2019 survey of 1,400 teachers found that a near-unanimous 98% of teachers believe “interactive video will be the future of personalized learning”.
The implications of personalized video are so vast they may take shape before students even meet their teachers. For instance, rather than create situations with awkward mispronunciations of names (that can make students feel shy and alienated), some teachers have kids send in video introductions, pronouncing their own name— allowing teachers the ability to replay the recording and familiarize themselves with kids’ names before any virtual meeting.
However, the effectiveness of online video learning will not be immediate, and relies on both teacher and student adjustment periods from the traditional in-person model.
“As an in-person teacher, you were often seen as either the sage that delivers knowledge or the coach that helps facilitate the understanding of knowledge,” says the ICDE’s Fassina. “In an online world…the teacher or the professor is not necessarily an active participant in the students learning at any given moment…and so you need to be able to create learning materials that a student can engage with on their own time.”
Thus, as students this year plop themselves down in front of their screens, they may not just be tuning in for their daily video lesson, but an evolution in the use of video education. One that’s developing literally before their eyes.
Even in cases where physical spaces are not necessary, augmented and virtual reality programs may still be marked improvements over the traditional way things were done. For instance, why go through the cruelty of killing and dissecting a frog when you can virtually recreate the experience on a phone? Similarly, who needs sticky fingers and a diorama when your child can create a robust 3D world—and project it onto their physical learning space.
The idea of remote, virtual tools to create a simulated learning experience are not strictly reserved for any age group either . Programs like Catchy Words AR have filtered down augmented reality to the kindergarten level, allowing young kids to use their cell phone cameras to walk around and “catch” letters in order to solve word puzzles.
Ultimately while virtual reality may get in the door through necessity, it may take root through practicality—particularly for digitally native Gen Zers used to expressing their creativity online. After all, a generation raised on TikTok filters may find a stylus a more apt tool than a brush.