As an educator, we've all had to deal with the prospect of distance learning. I would say it has been roughly a 60/40 proposition. 60% positive, 40% negative. The students who are motivated will always do well no matter what the circumstances are. The kids who were already difficult to motivate were always in danger of falling off the face of the earth without the in-person portion of school.
In my daily perusal of my go-to sites (most of which are linked on the sidebar), I came upon this article from the American Thinker. It focuses mostly on the experience in California and the problems of multi-lingual homes in which parents who are non-English speakers might have difficulty helping their children. The real takeaway, however, is the idea that technology has been made into an end in itself.
Too many raced into the distance learning deal with the expectation that TECHNOLOGY! would provide a solution. All it really does is change the medium of transmission. I'm still the teacher, the subject is still the subject, and the receivers (students) are still there. The only variable is the mode. I could podcast, use a Google Classroom, and use Kahoot, but ultimately, I was still the one teaching, refining, and evaluating. Not Google, Kahoot, or Quizlet.
Distance learning may be a good medium for more motivated students in the future, but for a vast majority of students, the face to face experience cannot be replicated. This is especially true in a time when parents can't (or won't) be of assistance to their children while they're staring a computer screen, iPad, or smartphone. There is a shift in the dynamic of office work underway. Telecommuting will become the norm over the next 5-10 years as a consequence of this unnecessary panic pandemic, but in-person classroom learning will be the last man standing.
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