Research pick: Remote learning in a pandemic - "The COVID-19 pandemic: when e-learning becomes mandatory not complementary"

For many years advocates of e-learning and online approaches to education touted the many benefits. Ultimately, however, it was the emergence of a novel coronavirus that gave us the COVID-19 pandemic that made e-learning an essential rather than a luxury for many students the world over. Research published in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, looks at how school and university closures, lockdowns, quarantines, and the urgent need to quash the virus, have pushed us into a world of online and e-learning as never before.

Mohammed Akour, Hiba Al Sghaier, and Yazan Al Shboul of Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan and Mamdouh Alenezi of the Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, make the obvious point that students are the focus of education but this is often overlooked in the rush to recruit students, fulfill curriculum obligations, and achieve targets. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major changes in our outlook and approach, however, and students are now more properly the focus once again. As such, educators need to consider the way in which remote learning has affected their students over the months since the pandemic arose and to see how e-learning might be implemented for the benefit of future students after the pandemic and ahead of the almost inevitable next emergent pathogen.

The team writes that while the pandemic has pushed us into an unprecedented educational position, “E-learning can be an opportunity for teachers, students, and university administrators to stay connected; a tool to guarantee continuous learning; and a means to provide psychosocial support until students can go back to university.” They point out that the success of e-learning approaches to education are obviously highly dependent on access to appropriate technology – a computer, tablet, and, of course, the internet, the role it plays is only as effective as the educators make it and the response of students. “Transitioning to e-learning requires time and preparation for both students and teachers,” the team adds, “as well as from a technological standpoint.”

In the current study, a survey of students revealed a somewhat negative attitude towards e-learning at this point in education history. The main cause, the team suggests, lies in the urgency with which the pandemic forced us to adopt e-learning and the lack of preparation, despite many years of development of the tools and technologies on which educators and students have now relied for almost two years. There are, as it were lessons to be learned, regarding the implementation of e-learning that will hopefully allow educators to help their students in the future should we once again come to a time of lockdowns, school closures, and self-isolation.

Akour, M., Alenezi, M., Al Sghaier, H. and Al Shboul, Y. (2021) ‘The COVID-19 pandemic: when e-learning becomes mandatory not complementary’, Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.429–439.