I don’t know what it is like in the rest of the world but the UK and Ireland have been heavily disrupted by the recent bad weather. As a result the majority of schools have been closed or had to close for some length of time. As always this inspires a flurry of blog posts venting anger and astonishment that in the age of the Virtual Learning Environment schools aren’t better prepared for such an eventuality.
This guy (click here) in particular has pre-empted the excuses a school might give for not continuing operations via their VLE and although it is interesting to read his responses they do seem a bit idealistic.
So what do you think? Should schools be at a stage where they can use their VLE to continue operations even when the building is closed?
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Tags: education technology, eLearning, Moodle, School, Snow, VLE
Nothing wrong with having a few ‘back-up’ activities on your VLE page – could be links to interesting video clips, free educational games, revision quizzes etc followed up/supported by class forums/instant chat areas. It’s not hard to set-up (just make sure you’ve got yourself organised at the start of term!)
Hi Joel,
Not idealistic at all. It’s exactly what’s happening in many schools across the country.
What it does require is a culture of using your VLE as a natural extension of the classroom all year round – not just on school closure days.
As you’ll see from the poll results, most people seem to agree with me…
Cheers,
Mark
I’ll have to give it to – you certainly seem to have the support of the Synergy Learning readers.
The problem with believing that VLE environments can be setup to take over in case of snow days is that it would require a baseline of technology on the part of the students and the teachers. Students would always need internet access and a computer to access the content, and teachers would need it to lead a virtual class, or possibly to administer activities and standby for questions, etc. Unless said technology is provided to the students then a good portion of the students could miss the activities.
Maybe this is a U.S. point of view, but building in those faults could be seen as putting certain classes of students at a disadvantage in an age where lawsuits run rampant. However, if the question was phrased leaning more toward corporate learning (my field) then it would make perfect sense that all operations except our manufacturing could continue. But that’s only because all of our associates are provided the tools needed.