eLearning and eTraining report
Remote learning at a glance eolas engages with teachers and lecturers across the spectrum of first-, second-, and third-level education in Ireland in order to gauge the experience of remote learning and teaching, the greatest challenges for educators and the most significant impacts upon students. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closures of educational institutions across Ireland, from primary schools to universities, educators and students alike have been forced to reckon with a shift to online and remote learning and teaching that has proved to be a challenge for all involved. Educators typically reported a period of getting to grips with technology, both on their side and the side of the students, during the first lockdown period and a more fluid process during the second lockdown. “We gave timetables to the kids,” says
84
Lisa Howell, a teacher in a Dublin secondary school, explaining how education was organised in her place of work. “The first time we did remote learning, teachers were left to do their own thing, but the second time, we gave the kids timetables so that teachers and students were made accountable. This meant that teachers were teaching classes rather than just assigning work all the time. “As a year head, I would know that a child in my year had a class at a given time and if they weren’t online, I would be able to ring home and ask why they
were not online. We were finding that the kids would find it too difficult to do all-online all day, so you’d give them a mix. If I had five lessons planned for a week, five 40-minute classes, I might do four online classes and one where I would assign written work. If you assigned them work, you would correct it electronically over Google Classroom. Some of them found it difficult to type, say if they were working off a phone, so they might take a picture of the work done and send it in to us.” Siobhán Shovlin, a primary school teacher, also in Dublin, reports similarly,
