Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2021)
ONLINE EDUCATION – IMPROVISATION OR INNOVATION
Abstract
Online education has been widely available since the internet started to play an important part in everybody’s life and its benefits for all stakeholders are unquestionable. Since the pandemic struck, online education has become the watchword for an audience wider than the one envisaged before, as, at all levels, be they primary, secondary or tertiary, teachers, students and parents have pinned all their hopes on it, expecting it to be the appropriate solution, so that educational standards could be kept at least at a minimum/satisfactory level. But, were they ready to turn to this somewhat new teaching and learning paradigm? Did they have the necessary digital skills? Could they successfully adapt to a whole new approach? Considering that online teaching has been more or less exclusive in most parts in Romania for the last two semesters in primary and secondary education, our paper aims to tentatively answer these questions from the teachers’ perspective, by pointing to both the positive and negative aspects entailed by this unforeseen situation which does not seem to end any time too soon. Even if our investigation is limited to a relatively small number of primary and secondary school educators from only one county of Romania, our conclusions might shed some light on the challenges that these specific actors have had to deal with so far, given the circumstances. Moreover, we might also be able to indicate whether the balance was tipped in favour of improvisation or innovation for those willing to participate in our survey.
