With the spread of the Corona pandemic, most of the world's students in the school stages are deprived of going to the schools and universities that were closed to avoid infection, and the time has become favorable for all kinds of predictions.
The pandemic affected various aspects of life, including education that was overwhelmed by the sweeping distance education revolution, although above all it is a social experience, not a hypothetical experience.
Alternative education models
In an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro, Charlotte Villall, a lecturer in management science at the University of Paris, says that the sudden closure of all educational institutions has sparked a massive movement towards distance education, which is difficult to stop and may be a declaration of the end of our educational model.
The educational expert believes that this craving for virtual education may lead to the discovery of the advantages of the Internet, and even if it accelerates the adoption of new methods of distance education, it is too early to see the first signs of a boom in distance education.
The reason - according to the author - is simple, that all education actors today find themselves on the Internet, either compelled, coerced, or reluctantly, but this sudden presence does not mean that the many challenges that complicate the emergence of effective educational models via the Internet have been solved by a miracle, because Many patients suddenly rush to the same medicine, which does not mean that this medicine has become a guaranteed result.
A problem that does not cure.
Feeloul believes that one of the reasons that make online education a problem that must be solved more than it is treatment, is the fact that the model that was adopted from the beginning was not the right model.
The author considers that education is not an automatic process, and not a product in the technological sense of the term, but rather a process that is free from defects in its essence, based on a set of complex mechanisms, starting from admission to graduation, through the important and complex relationship between the student and the teacher.
Although many technology companies active in education are trying to solve these problems, none have yet succeeded.
The absence of the mediator
and one of the errors that explain the relative failure of online education - as the author shows - that the second pillar on which the tremendous success of many digital applications is built is the replacement of a heterogeneous group of educational mediators with one medium, which is effectively placed in the center, a mechanism that is not Effective in the field of education because the transfer of knowledge or the acquisition of skills is mainly mediation, as learning above all is a social act resulting from direct confrontation and exchange.
The author considered that the thundering failure of the intensive open courses remotely, or this online content that we thought in the early 2000s that we found in it the future of education, seems to be the consistent evidence that education is based only on the relationship between the teacher and the learner , Regardless of modalities of exchange over the Internet or others, because what matters is exchange.
Corona is a unique opportunity
The author concluded that the current situation under the Corona pandemic is wonderful and strange, because education under the pressure of the epidemic is finally ready to complete its digital transformation, driven by the forced use of solutions that rely on remote communication.
But although many schools or higher education institutions use more digital tools, this does not mean that these tools have suddenly become effective. In education, there is no magic solution, says Felloul.
What we need today, according to the author, is a deep rethinking of the links between digitalization and education, away from the "disruptive" models that experience shows that they do not work, by looking for an alternative to what is not tangible from the fact that education is a social experience, a long and multiple exchange and a common dialogue.
The expert concluded that the Corona epidemic provides us with a unique opportunity, and we have to make sure to build a logical and effective education via the Internet, rather than being contented with simple placebo.