Digital technology equipment for distance learning

Hosted by , contributed by Kyriaki_Vakkou on 13 December 2022
Dimension:
Availability of ICT tools and applications
Stakeholders involved:
Technology providers
Parents
Main challenge:

A school in Finland operates in the same building the primary and secondary education. Due to the low number of upper secondary students, some of the advanced courses are organized partly as distance learning in cooperation with nearby upper secondary schools. In the school, there are two classrooms for the students who have to attend their lessons online. There were fixed hardware which were being used for a long time and only a few knew how to operate them.  In addition, the overlaps in needing to use these two classrooms created an additional challenge.

Action and initiatives:

To overcome the challenges, the school started to investigate substitute distance learning systems by attending demonstration events. Among other similar systems, they chose to use Google Meet because they thought that it was the easiest to use. Google Meet did not require downloading any separate software and someone could join the meeting with just a link. In addition, the use of the online environment was free. When COVID-19 appeared and nationwide distance learning started, some of the secondary school teachers had time to run distance learning courses through Google Meet. Some teachers were using it before the COVID-19 so this proved to be an advantage and hence, they were able to share practices with other teachers on a fast schedule. Students also had time to try out Classroom and Drive. They had used Drive as a portfolio building platform and as a place to create various presentations and essays. However, they only had time to get to know the Google Meet during one learning session with each class the day before the distance learning started. The distance learning software chosen showed sufficient clarity and ease of use in providing students with a fast distance learning connection after the school switched to distance learning entirely.

Main change/improvement/impact:

Using the Google platform has become part of the daily life in school of both teachers and students. Most of the more extensive written work is created using Drive applications. The portfolio is still compiled in the Drive folder. For instance, most of the students compile their collection of organisms in biology digitally with Google slides. Also, Google Forms are used as a test and survey tool, both with students and when creating surveys for teachers. In geography, a news tracking task is created on the Google My Maps template. Google Docs is used for teacher collaboration. Different kinds of equipment and bike booking lists are based on the Google Sheets spreadsheet template.

Now students can participate in Google Meet distance learning from any classroom and, if necessary, from home during quarantine. Each classroom now has a network connection and teachers can teach from any classroom via their own computer. The school currently has 39 HP laptops and 35 Chromebooks in shared use. The students using an electronic booking form can book them. In addition, in upper secondary school, all students have their own laptops. Teaching has become more accessible and flexible. Of course, hybrid teaching has also been a burden on teachers. Some students also use Google Apps on their mobile phones and have already used them before outside of school. The biggest challenge in high school studies has been that students have not learned to save their files and the LibreOffice software used in high school still requires traditional separate storage. The school will continue to pay more attention to this in the future. At the local community level, some students have also taught their guardians how to use Google software in their own work. Certainly, students have gained knowledge about digital content that benefits later studies, work life and the whole family.

Already implemented by the following schools
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