The future of schools and education post COVID-19
By Andrew Hopton
2020-07-21
I think we can all agree, that for our friends who work in schools across the country, it hasn’t been a typical school year! In particular, I.T. departments have seen an increased workload in getting both staff and students set up to teach and learn remotely from their homes. But as life slowly starts to get back to a ‘new normal’, it got us thinking. ..what is the future of schools going to look like post COVID-19 and will the practices of the last few months, continue?
Social distancing is here to stay for the foreseeable, so can we expect classrooms to look different and we could potentially see some pupils continue to learn remotely, e.g. college and university students. For us at VeryPC, we’ve seen a large increase in demand for mobile devices over the past few months and we’re anticipating this to continue. Just last week we discovered from Microsoft that 6 million students in the UK do not have access to devices at their school, which asks the question, how many don’t have access at home either?
As an AV reseller who partner with leading brands such as SMART and Promethean, we’re expecting interactive flat panels to continue to play a leading, but slightly different, role in the future of learning post COVID. A huge focus will be on hygiene and cleanliness of these devices and we’re making sure that we work with our partners and installation teams to ensure your classroom is compliant with the latest Government regulations.
Students and staff have faced a lot of change over the past few months. From being out of the classroom, engaging with their teachers remotely through Microsoft Teams or Zoom and learning remotely on engaging software such as SMART Learning Suite. We’ve seen that it’s not where you’re learning, it’s how you’re learning and who by. Research has even shown that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information and takes less time, meaning the changes may be here to stay, or at least, alter learning for future students.
As a company who predominately sell into the education sector, these have been a challenging few months for us here at VeryPC. We’ve adapted our marketing strategies, the services we offer and ensured that we’re able to provide schools with everything they need. For now, the ‘new normal’ looks set to be students learning in so-called ‘bubbles’, teachers wearing PPE and a rise in the use of mobile devices and remote learning. But who knows? As a company, we’re able to play our part in adapting to the situation and ensuring the needs of our customers are continually met.
It may be the summer holidays, but we know the planning for September has already begun. We hope it’s a safe one for you all.
