Muscat, March 15 - The suspension of schools for a month in the wake of coronavirus has made some schools and teachers think out of the box. On Sunday at least one private school opted to go ahead with online examination for its students. Some IT experts are also supporting the idea of e-learning, at least for the time being. Some schools are exploring the idea of sending study content by email. It is challenging time for the parents to keep their children occupied and safe at home. Nasser al Yahyai, father of two boys, said, “I took one of my sons out with me so that they do not get bored or fight at home’’.
Another parent opted to take his daughter to a shopping mall ensuring she follows all precautions of hand hygiene while being out.
While the parents were thrown off balance with the closure of schools, some educational institutions have decided to use virtual classrooms in association with some experts in the area.
Abdullah al Bahrani, IT expert, agreed that the move is appropriate in the present situation. “There are many applications and tools for e-learning. Some of them are free and others have low subscription fee. However, many schools shy away thinking it requires heavy investment,” Al Bahrani said.
“There is, for instance, Google Classroom and other platforms for e-learning. If the school wants to use it, the service is available for low subscription and can easily connect with their children. So the classes can continue and the teachers will be able to provide the slides online, students can attend, the teacher can see the students who are online with him/her. The students can also interact with the teacher and ask their doubts... Unfortunately not all schools are using such facilities. They should understand that such applications do not require large infrastructure,” he pointed out.
According to him, there are some free tools too. “Even Google would provide it free but there could be pop up advertisements. Teachers can send notifications when he/she wants to start lessons so that students can join the class on time’’.In such a situation the parents have to create the right atmosphere. “The students would require a quiet room or space where they can interact with the online classroom. Some schools can do it offline where they can send the content and slides for students to go through and get back to teacher with their queries. And teacher can come back maybe after one hour or two’’.
The option to go online would require all students to have access to online facilities from wi-fi services to computers and families should be able to provide the technical support for the young students.
Online learning, however, is not a new concept in the higher education level in Oman. Sultan Qaboos University, for instance, has already been using e-learning, but only for courses registered officially with Deanship of Admissions and Registration and for non-academic courses used for community services, research, students projects, training and others.
Higher College of Technology has also been applying e-learning named ‘Blended Learning,’ that also required face to face learning, where e-learning is used as a fusion with the face to face traditional educational environment. Teachers publish their educational materials online; prepare quizzes and assignments online using the e-learning portal for the students. They have been using e-learning for even final exams and now have completely online courses.
But for the schools, it will be first step forward to e-learning bringing in the principles of e-Oman.
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