COVID-19 is opening the future for digital education

The rapid spread and complicated evolution of the new strain of coronary pneumonia virus - COVID-19 has led many schools to close temporarily to limit the spread of the virus in the community. This is a common difficulty facing the global education industry, but in some respects, it is opening up opportunities for online / digital learning.

The fact that schools are forced to close indefinitely causes the demand for online learning to soar, and it also shows governments the need to build an online education platform. national level, can afford the education industry in emergencies such as epidemics, wars, or incidents, natural disasters .

The fact that many educational institutions are also very active in developing online learning platforms is not only to meet the urgent needs during the epidemic, but also to prepare for the future. potential of digital education. Take for example the case of New Oriental Education & Technology Group. The Beijing-based online education company made a quick decision to collaborate with interactive live streaming platform Agora.io last month to develop a technical classroom management platform. Very large scale numbers, can spread throughout China. After more than 1 week of 24/7 work of hundreds of engineers, this online learning platform has been born and is currently being implemented with the participation of more than 1 million Chinese students.

It is just one of thousands of examples of the rapid development of online learning that the target audience is none other than COVID-19. It can be affirmed that without the appearance of this epidemic, it is difficult for the online education sector to receive such great attention and development investment in such a short time.

Online classes are designed to provide the most familiar learning experience for both learners and teachers. The biggest goal is to help students and teachers interact with each other in a proactive, seamless and natural way as usual. New Oriental Education & Technology Group said it would continue to perfect its services, even after COVID-19 was pushed back. This is really a good sign for the education industry in general.

Distance education and digital-based education are not new concepts, but the development of this field is showing signs of slowing down and not being properly invested in the past few years. This stems mainly from the difficulties that educational institutions face. Firstly, schools need to ensure consistency and uniformity of teaching content and materials. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure consistency of the environment and the way of teaching.

In a country like China, where there is a relatively concentrated school system and curriculum, the transition from traditional to online learning can be easier when the government creates a sufficient push. big. But the educational infrastructure of the majority of countries around the world does not work like that, and in the context of an outbreak, school closures across the nation are inevitable.

Two things schools can do to make this transition easier is to focus on building a learning management system or digital record that teachers can access from anywhere. , and maintain a continuous communication line between teachers, students and parents.

It is clear that developing large-scale digital education models is not a task that can be completed overnight, but the arrival of COVID-19 has contributed significantly in accelerating this process. .