First Day at Online School

Today's Class

Being 1st June, today was the first day of classes, the online-classes, in many schools. I had the opportunity to assist my kid. My 7 years old kid was excited and was preparing for a few days to attend the first class after a long break.

Students started joining and the teacher finally arrived a few minutes late. The schedule of the classes is something like (and this is going to get extended to a longer period):

Class-1: 8:30-9:00

Break : 9:00 - 9:20

Class-2: 9:20-9:50

Break : 9:50-10:20

Class-3: 10:20-10:50

So when the teacher was at the helm of the class, it was already 8:40 and for some time nothing happened and then the prayer started at 8:45. After the prayer, attendance started. Now the first name was announced and everyone said "yes mam" maybe because the children did not hear the name properly or did not understand properly. After some struggle, the attendance was over (successfully).

Why is the attendance required when you can know who is in the meeting and who is not? Looking at that list the teacher can confirm the names and just pronounce whoever is absent and the child can speak up if he is present but still the teacher pronounced his name in absentees.

With this, it was around 8:55. At this point, the teacher started to share the screen, where again the teacher could not share the screen for almost 2-3 minutes and children-teacher conversed a couple of repetitions

Teacher: "Can you see my screen?"

Children: "No Mam, we can't see your screen"

Teacher: "Let me try again"

Was it because the teacher using a mobile phone? Or the teacher is not trained enough? The teacher could share the screen finally and go through a couple of slides of a story. With this, it is the end of class-1.

After a 10 minutes break, when the children came back at 9:10, the teacher did not join for a while and the children started asking, "Mam, are you there?", and there is no reply from the teacher. The teacher only came 3 minutes before the class was to end i.e. at 9:37. You can imagine what all the children were doing all while the teacher was not there. The teacher said sorry and told the children that she will come on time and for a full class next time. End of the class-2 and there is a 30 minutes break.

The class-3 was much better compared to the first two. The teacher was able to communicate in a much better way compared to the previous two classes. It is still just trying to engage the children and not to teach anything. But that is fine on the first day, I feel.

One incident in the middle of class-3:

Parent: Mam, can you show your face so that the children can focus otherwise they are getting distracted and not able to connect and focus.

Mam: I will try but maybe because I am using my mobile you are not able to see my face. Only I can see only some children because of the mobile screen.

Before this conversation, we were under the impression that the teachers are going to the school and the school has a good computer setup with a big screen and other tools to conduct an online class. But it is not true, the teachers are taking classes from their mobile phones from their homes. Why can't teachers go to school and have a better setup?

Other observations:

• It seems from the video that there is no secluded area in the home where the children can take classes peacefully and comfortably.
• Parent's are not mindful of closing microphone and camera when other household chores are going on. There are some not-so-great scenes and conversations from the background which should not be part of an online class.

What are the concerns?

Health concerns

What are the health concerns of using 3-4 hours before the screen for a young kid who hardly can read and write yet? Who should certify that there are more benefits than the damage - the government, the school or the parents? I feel the government has to take this responsibility and clarify to great detail.

Parent's time and engagement

It seems like a parent's class and not a child's. This will go on forever. Even in a professional setup as well there are multiple issues connecting to audio, video quality, internet connection etc., here they all are inevitable. The parents have to be solving all this throughout and this time and effort are not accounted for.

Setup, Arrangement and Tools

In the corporate world, companies are extending help to employees for home office setup, which was not required when they were working in the office before Covid-19.

Why are the schools not providing laptops to students?

Are the schools concerned whether students have laptops, tablets or other means to attend the classes? Are the schools concerned about whether children are at a place where internet is accessible? Moreover, how do you ensure that there is enough space for all the kids to take up online classes at home (say there are two or three siblings taking classes) and the parents working from home? These are a few real issues no one bothered about.

Last but not the least, are the schools providing all infrastructure to the teachers to conduct an online class for 30 students? This infra could include (but not limited to) laptops, high-speed internet, software tools and training.

Fees

Because private schools are for-profit organizations and are already under scrutiny for higher fees and the increments every year, are they not liable to make all arrangements for kids and reducing the fees to say, half or so because the level of education possible is not even at those levels?

I also read that some schools are even not going back from their annual fee increment plans even after the government has passed orders not to do so, and are challenging the government orders in the court of law.

What Next?

This is the time when everyone should come together and make the arrangement favourable to all. On the contrary, there are steps taken by businesses only to show and argue for their businesses to keep the revenues steady (or as usual).

Another aspect is that the technologies we are using today for the online classes are not enough. Not at all enough to create the learning environment which was otherwise present in a physical classroom. This may never happen that the online classes become as good as physical classrooms but the technology can surely evolve to take up all the burdens from the teachers such as an attendance system, giving out homework, correcting the answers from children, better blackboard - writing tools to explain to students, better sharing tools and better content creating tools.

Read our blog where we highlight a few technologies. Online classes are here to stay.

So the work has to be carried out (and is being done) by the startups and technology giants to make online classes perform closer to physical classroom learning. This is important at least for schools kids and more so for younger kids.