We are all locked up at home these days, but schools and universities must go on. Going beyond the graduation sessions, which in one way or another are taking place online, the biggest problems caused by this situation concern elementary, middle and high school students. We are in fact talking about kids who are between 6 and 19 years old. Especially the little ones need help to understand how to carry out educational activities from home, since they may never have turned on a computer.
However, this situation drags on a series of other problems that have plagued our country for a long time, since poor digital literacy to the lack of time of the parents (some in these days are continuing to work). In short, today more than ever there is an important underlying problem for the school world: the lack of consideration of technological tools.
Online lessons and the difficulties of students and teachers
Although e-learning has been used for several years (especially in the university environment), the Italian school was not prepared to manage this teaching method. Speaking of situations that we have seen with our eyes in recent weeks and focusing only on the most significant, there are teachers who are holding video lessons on YouTube in a public way, with students who interact only through nicknames, some who have not even managed to register to one of the e-learning services made free these days and others who have resigned themselves and they are simply assigning homework, as if this replaced the lessons.
Consequently, how could children have trained to use these platforms? We could be here to discuss age, difficulty in moving to a new teaching method, not exactly performing Internet connections and effectiveness of the various methods for teaching lessons, but the reality is that there is still a long way to go in the field and -learning.
Don't get us wrong, the problems are also on the family side: many don't even have a PC or tablet at home, while some guys know how to use the smartphone, but only for basic tasks. According to what reported by Repubblica, if we take families with at least one minor, 3 out of 4 do not have a fixed computer, only 1 out of 2 has a laptop and 1 out of 3 has a tablet.
This seems to have caused a sort of "sharing" of electronic tools, in those families where there are more students. First the younger brother does the homework and then the older brother. But what if they both start having to attend classes at the same time? In short, the problem affects everyone, from teachers to families.
If our examples are not enough, the data confirm the situation. According to a recent survey by the Remote School Observatory of Skuola.net, carried out on a sample of over 30,000 secondary school students and over 2000 parents, 9 out of 10 students are taking advantage of "smart learning".
So far everything seems normal, but the problem lies in the ways in which teaching activities are carried out. In fact, in the North, 58% of students are using "advanced" e-learning tools (eg G Suite), while in the South, 47% of students are simply using the electronic register.
Yes, you understood correctly: it is easy to speak of "smart learning", but many times the latter of "smart" has very little, from North to South of the peninsula.
This is without counting that only one in four children has experienced remote questions or class assignments. Furthermore, as regards middle school students, only 77% say they are carrying out educational activities. If, on the other hand, you are wondering how many students are actually taking "real" online lessons, we are talking about 51% in the North (given that it drops if we take into consideration middle schools) and 23% in the South. boy out of 10 is not following educational activities in any way, not even those related to the electronic register.
But what about students? Still according to the aforementioned survey, 35% of the boys who reject this method say they cannot remain concentrated, 24% do not fully understand the explanations and 19% say that there may be problems in the evaluation.
Even the teachers are not happy with the situation: even some of the more "technological" are in agreement that an "enhancement" of digital skills would be needed. In short, the situation that emerges is far from rosy and does nothing but confirm the impressions we have had in recent days.
Yet e-learning tools have been around for a long time and every year, at fairs like Didacta, many teachers continue to demonstrate their willingness to approach these methods. However, we are in a country where, just a few months ago, a decree was issued to abolish the telematic university courses of Psychology, which was later withdrawn following protests by students and teachers.
What many are asking at this point is whether the current situation will at least help teachers and families understand the importance of digital tools. We also hope that what is happening will also be an example for the governments that will come, because even the cuts to school made over time have their great weight in the difficulties that are encountered today.
