Technology, the pandemic and education

Did you ever think that you could deliver an entire academic year via Zoom? Before the current pandemic, many academics would’ve thought not, the lack of a personal touch that in-person lectures bring was seen as the biggest detriment to online teaching and learning. However, the current coronavirus pandemic has forced a great rethink, not only about delivering lectures online, but also about how universities deliver all their other services, such as open days, staff meetings and promotions.

The big concern that faced many universities as the coronavirus started to pick up was how they were going to keep delivering lectures and seminars to students to ensure they got their value for money. In the past, efforts to trial online learning were met with stiff resistance by both staff and pupils with many claiming that online lectures took away a key experience for both staff and students. As such, that remained the mainstream thinking until March of 2020 when governments across the world started implementing lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus.

But now, with the coronavirus continuing to wreak havoc, universities have had to adapt. This has meant moving lectures online for the foreseeable future. Zoom, Webex and Microsoft Teams have become the new lingua franca of lecturers and students due to accessibility of these applications, and the way in which lectures can be scheduled weeks in advance via their diary systems. 

The use of online applications has also meant that lecturers have had to adapt their content. Some lecturers have adapted by for example using items at home as examples for talking points or as measuring scales when needing to make a point regarding an artefact. Others have started using the more interactive features of Microsoft Office to create engaging and compelling content that keeps students interested in the lecture. 

Of course, there are problems in that some features of an in-person discussion group cannot be translated easily over to an online seminar, tools do exist to help counteract that. Chat features in Zoom and the ‘raise your hand’ feature in Microsoft Teams enable students who may not be confident in just talking to get involved.

In order to keep attracting new students, Universities are now conducting virtual Open Days. Making use of the previously mentioned online applications as well as their IT departments and through giving visitors the chance to experience a taster virtual lesson, universities have begun moving forward with a digital strategy that delivers the same things as a physical open day but readjusted for the new normal.

The pandemic has also forced universities to adopt a much more coherent digital promotional strategy. Instead of just relying on old fashioned media, many universities have started to shift their budgets toward digital, especially social media. Universities have branched out into email marketing to rope potential students in by providing them with updates about the university, hooking them in by making them feel part of the family already. They have also updated their social media presence, creating more accessible and relatable posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok, allowing potential students to see what life could be like on campus, and whether the attitudes of the university meet what they expect from a university. 

The pandemic has made apparent that the future of education depends on how well universities develop their technological capabilities. As the examples above show, there has been a real intersection between the level of technological capability within the institution and how effective their response to the pandemic has been.