Digital Learning

 The educational industry would not be able to function during this pandemic without computers. Not only do teachers and students require computers to learn safely at home, these computes must have updated technologies to enable learning.  I work in customer service for an online learning platform. I get calls from teachers, administration, students, and parents about how to access the online content. The biggest call drives are teachers attempting to access the digital content that gets assigned to students. For example, a teacher will call in and ask how to access the online math content purchased by the district. I would walk through how to request an account on the educational platform, get it approved, create a class, assign work to the students, and grade the assignments.  This industry is constantly changing in real time. One big change that happened this year was forced by the software Flash being discontinued. Almost all the platforms use some version of flash in my industry. They had to completely revamp the system to enable teacher and students continued use. Another major change is that during the pandemic many schools switched to online learning nearly tripling the amount of traffic on the websites. This also increased the phone support needed for customer service. Many districts had purchased digital content, but teachers were not using it. When they faced work at home conditions, many teachers wanted to access the digital content that will now and moving forward be a staple in most United States classrooms.

Computers are an integral part of online learning. Teachers and students use desktops, laptops, Chromebooks, tablets, and phones for learning in a way that most current adults did not utilize. During the pandemic it has become the normal routine to have classrooms online. It is essential that teacher and students have updated computers and fast enough internet services to use online classrooms.

During the pandemic it is now a requirement that teachers are computer literate. They must be able to at least open an online room such as zoom or adobe. It is essential they can set up the classrooms. A teacher must be able to grade the online content submitted. It is even better if they are more familiar with the platform and can send out videos and readings to the students. I can not even count how many of the teachers told me on the phone that last year the students were not allowed to come back to the school to get their books. This year, the teachers stated that they are not using physical books at all, due to fear of the pandemic spreading the virus. Teacher and students are relying on the online content making computer literacy a requirement as well.

In the future, I am guessing that the online platforms will become even more sophisticated. Currently there is not a way for teachers to share personal content with each other. Teachers can use the pre-made tests and quizzes but update them to delete questions or add questions. The teachers can not share the updated quiz or test with other teachers through the platform. Some content has a copyright on it, and can not be downloaded. In the future, I am guessing that more content will be able to be shared and downloaded. More teachers will stop asking to print assignments and start looking at digital content only. Districts will most likely make the classes more standardized and teachers will have less authority to change the content themselves. As computers become more modernized, they will probably become smaller and lighter. Teachers and student might use their phones for classes instead of computers at all. If this happens, then my predictions will be that phones get bigger screens.