International Updates
View(s):Due to the ongoing uncertainty with regards to Covid-19, the Universities have taken the decision to suspend all face to face teaching delivered via lectures and seminars from Monday 23rd March until end of the semester on Friday May 1st. We have emailed our student community to inform them of this. Teaching continued as normal until close of play on Friday 20th March.
From Monday 23rd March academic colleges and schools ensured that learning material and resources are available online to support students with continuing their studies. We are also planning for supervision for postgraduate research students to take place remotely.
Pete Lloyd
Swansea University
Wales, UK
Adding our resources like video recording of classes, PPT, PDF etc can be uploaded on MOODLE/ WordPress which are opensource platform. Screencastomatic can be used to create videos by recording the slides of PPT and simultaneously recording our description as we do in offline classroom. Evaluation can be done on MOODLE / Googleclassroom. Practical setup can be video recorded (a bit difficult) and uploaded.
Creating all these requires at least minimum 16-20 hours of input for 1 hour of class. But the resources once made can be useful henceforth.
Namrata Ashish Nagpurkar
The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
India
In Russia and its big cities I see no problems to move to online education. The only question is the University server capacity. I’m not sure the servers and network would fit online teaching for all the students. Maybe the solution is to move from online video conferences to asynchronous methods.
Dmitry Mochalin
Petersburg State Electrotechnical University
Russia
One way out is virtual classes, no doubt. But, an example here in Brazil, there is a portion of students who do not have access to the internet. This problem is a complicated topic, especially for countries where the financial issues cause limits access to internet services.
Ademar França de Sousa Neto
Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG)
Brazil
First of all, I am from Romania. Here the online system started to be applied from this week but we don’t have a preset form. Some of the instructors use Facebook, WhatsApp and google resources. I am not sure that is the best way of organizing the courses but for that moment, when the crisis is close and smart choices must be taken, this can be the best solution.
Online learning is an alternative way but you must manage the problem for the entire society. Most of the people which take part in the educational system have not access to the resources in order to take the part form an online session.
Trompac Alexandru
University of Bucharest
Romania
In the case of my country (Malaysia), my university has started the implementation of distance learning (E-learning) for my faculty. However, this action was taken quite in hassle due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a perspective, it has opened a new method for learning for the students. Since this is a new method of doing so, there will be some flaws such as the interaction between lecturer and the students itself. However, I do believe that these issues can be addressed and improved for future implementation, not only during contingency conditions (disease spreading), but as supporting tools for better lecture delivery.
Mohamad Khairuzzaman Mohamad Zamani
Universiti Teknologi MARA
Malaysia
My home institution, has actively encouraged development of e-learning content over the past 5-10 years. A specific faculty (Open, Distance and E- learning) has facilitated the training of other faculties in developing content, uploading it and utilizing online teaching tools. It is a lengthy process that cannot certainly be implemented on short notice.
Those who have been producing and uploading their content and having sandwich/blended lecture & e-learning courses have found it easy to transition to e-leaning fully during this lock-down period. For health professionals training, this is especially helpful for the basic sciences and theoretical aspects of the course. It is hoped practical sessions can be scheduled once normal teaching contact resumes. Goes to show how learning and teaching needs to adapt and utilize IT to remain relevant.
Hazel Simila
University of Nairobi
Kenya