As a result of the COVID-19 virus all's chools in the world's most populous country will be unable to cram 50 or mote students into a classroom for some weeks. And although the first it may not be the last.
My school has already asked me to teach online. Will the Moodle community welcome and help this expansion?
I am not really sure what is happening as my winter holidays allowed me to leave China in the last days of December. I am due to start back in the first days of March. The situation is not clear but gathering thousands of students into shared dormitories, canteens and classrooms is now likely to be delayed.
Classes for younger students have already been cancelled and millions of teachers - and I am not exaggerating these numbers - have been asked to use online methods. Most are trying using social media.
My colleagues have been asked if they could teach online. With over 300 students to teach, without a LMS the task seems impossible. I recklessly said yes and I am now thinking through the problems. The first is I left my computer behind and haven't touched a keyboard in six weeks. A secondhand Thinkpad is on order.
I think it is too late for teachers suddenly asked to teach online to do anything more than send out some notes and videos. Other countries have more time to prepare. I don't think I am being alarmist in saying some schools around the world may have to cancel face to face classes.
Are schools preparing for that possibility?
I appreciate the heart in this very much.
However, what makes you think the Chinese government and education system is not onto this situation?
Latest communication I have is that I may have to teach for two months online. I am sitting in a Airbnb in Manila with only a cellphone. Many Chinese teachers are in a similar position, having gone home for the Chinese New Year and finding themselves in villages with slow internet and no access to a computer
I can cope. My Moodle is running, my students have a login and I have spent time in class last semester showing them how it works.
I have offered to help my Western colleagues by adding them as teachers on my site. That offer holds for any teacher caught by this situation.
But the problem is Moodle is complicated. I doubt if any of my colleagues can create a course and support their students in logging in and using forums and quizzes.
This is why Moodle Partners can't really help. It is the grassroots, the teachers that drive Moodle. And those teachers don't have the skills to run Moodle. Not for any fault of their own but because they have never even heard of Moodle. My first exposure to Moodle was on a CELTA course as a student and seeing how my fellow aspiring teachers struggled opened my eyes. Teaching with Moodle doesn't come naturally.
This isn't a Chinese problem. It may be coming to your school in a matter of months.
I think some people need to get hsmmer and nails out now
You are correct, my bad.
I am now looking at Bigbluebutton for web conferencing. I would have around 50 students at once and I think with the ability to mute and unmute their microphones it would work.
My understanding is I would have to set up a BBB server and it would have to be around 4 Gb of ram and 4 CPUs. I would probably have to beef up my own Moodle server as the performance under load would be critical.
Maybe I will start a new thread. There is some outlay and I really want to get this right. There will be some satisfaction in crafting a better solution than my school can come up with.
The examples I saw on social media were of teachers lecturing to students over a cell phone.Being told to teach online with little notice and no training gave them little choice.
My boss wanted me to use a cellphone to broadcast. This could be 6 hours a day three days a week for two months. At least I think he wanted this as the situation is still very confused.
There are good ways and bad ways to live broadcast. I was vaguely aware of BBB but I had dismissed it as I used Moodle as a supplement to face to face. Looking at it now I see it is very suitable as it allows monitoring of attendees and interaction and class discussion.
I think BBB will be superior to asychronous forum discussions. I have already opened a thread to gauge if I am going the right way. Often a software approach looks promising until you find what you can't do. My biggest problem may be bandwidth.
I still do find it interesting. I am due to start teaching on March 2 like millions of others but am being told to teach online. That is not put up a bit of homework for your class. That iis classroom teachers being told to teach solely online for a month or more.
How they manage it is still a work in progress. It could be left up to teachers or be organised from above. It could use an existing LMS or a new one could be created. At any rate it is probably the biggest single jump in numbers of online students and teachers.
I tried webconferencing with a couple of students using the test server. One success and one student whose page failed to load after 2 to 3 minutes. Given the work involved in creating a BBB server it is on the back burner. Recorded teacher and student video is the most important to get going and tested given the time I have.
I'll take that as a no.
Sure. But back to the original point, the numbers of students suddenly requiring online teaching may have to be revised. The epidemic is spreading.
South Korea, Japan, Iran, Milan so far. I think every school district needs to start thinking about what they will do if schools are closed for weeks or even months. Do students get a holiday? Is it up to individual tachers to do what they can?
In my opinion, it is just wonderful that people began to want studeing online, because there is so much opportunities online. I really hope that this trend will continue
This is so true! I personally know a lot of people who started to study online and teachers who were forced to teach online. For some people it's the best way and for some not. I myself was supposed to pass one course this summer but due to virus restrictions I can not travel to that country now so I will be doing it online from my Alicante property
