We are going through very uncertain times lately, we do not know what is going to happen in the short or midterm, unthinkable in the long term. What we can be sure about is that our way to understand life, and subsequently, education, has changed forever.
Every day we read news that make us reconsider the situation and look for new solutions to cope with the storm the best way possible, widely speaking. Regarding education, the majority of the most evolved societies, have even been forced to adapt the way to deliver the lessons, either because of the incorporation of new ways that did not need to consider up to date, but also because of the need to create content suitable for that new way to reach the students.
The situation in each country differs, but also inside each country different realities coexist, reason why we cannot generalize about which is going to be the new norm in education. At the moment, there are countries/educational institutions that are trying to come back to classrooms almost the same way they did before the pandemic raised, others that aspire to be able to combine distant with face-to-face learning, and others that will opt for just distant learning in short/midterm.
So, the three scenarios that most frequently will be found seem to be:
- Face-to-face education: either the number of students per classroom is the same or it is reduced by an increase of the number of classrooms or shifts and teachers, it is necessary to ensure the distance among them, and with the teacher. The capability to interact from each desk with the rest of the attendees is key, to guarantee the secure distance and minimize the risk of contagion. A touchscreen can help to ease interactivity between teacher and students, with the content sharing from the main device (touchscreen) to the students´ and vice versa. Frequent cleaning of the touchscreens and stylus is a must. Newline touchscreens work with regular passive stylus, so… why not to provide each of the students with one of them?
- Blended learning: or face-to-face education to a part of the students, and distant learning for the others, alternating groups to attend to school, so the number of students simultaneously in the same space decrease but attend the lessons “together”. It will be necessary to share the content with the students devices´ no matter physically (as we mentioned in the previous scenario) or remotely present, and to connect these ones by videoconference, with the tool of each school´s choice. An external camera to record the teacher interacting with the touchscreen during the lesson is key to catch the students´ attention. The engagement of sharing content remotely to the students increases when the teacher is being seen interacting, writing, drawing, etc. as they do in face-to-face lessons. In the case of an additional webcam embedded in the touchscreen, it can face the present students if necessary.
- Distant learning: many organizations are opting for this kind of lectures, like the prestigious Cambridge University just announced. But as some researches reveal, the lack of face-to-face lessons (when what was expected was not distant learning, but presential), may make the students lose interest. In order to make online lectures as similar as face-to-face as possible, the recommendation is to share the content and to make the videoconference using an external camera pointing to and capturing the teacher interacting with the touchscreen during the lesson, as mentioned in the previous scenario. The engagement of the attendees will be significantly increased.
Why not to record the lessons performed in a natural way, to provide the additional advantage of reviewing it afterwards?
The near future is difficult to predict, but what seems to be clear is that the change to interactive education is a must, the digital content is more and more needed, and to have the necessary tools to interact with the students will make the difference. The technological leap is here, and in Newline we can help any organization to make it safely and easily. The Newline touchscreens are compatible with any educational software tool and any videoconference application, and they interact in a very intuitive way with any other device. At this moment, our society has completely changed. We have to make the most out of now. Newline can help you deliver online and blended learning lessons!
