Abstract
Among the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt worldwide is in the closure of physical spaces, prompting a shift online in many aspects of daily life, including education. Many universities, colleges, and other educational institutions adapted quickly, though often in an ad-hoc manner, to what some researchers have called emergency online learning. Even in pre-pandemic times, selecting and implementing platforms and tools to support online learning effectively in educational contexts was not a clear-cut task. Finding the right balance between pedagogy, training, support, data security, and privacy and ensuring ease of use confounded the efforts to provide an effective online learning environment. This chapter re-examines the results of a study on online learning tool choice conducted pre-pandemic coupled with a review of lessons learned from literature on emergency online learning to better understand how decision makers can best select the tools for their institutions.
TopIntroduction
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was officially declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020 (WHO, 2020), higher education institutions had already long been developing platforms to support online education. Online learning offerings had been showing continual yearly growth prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, according to a study by Allen, Seaman, Poulin and Straut from 2016, the numbers of students learning online between 2012-2014 had grown 7% and that nearly a quarter of all higher education students had already taken one or more courses online. Di Xu and Ying Xu (2019) underscore the rate at which degree-granting institutions were offering online courses and also noted the yearly increases. They write:
In 2016–17, approximately 3,500, or 76 percent, of all degree-granting institutions reported offering online courses. This number has increased steadily since 2012, when 70 percent of those institutions reported to offer online courses. (p. 6)
In fact, prior to the pandemic, EducationData.org reports that “33% of all college students took at least one course online…” (EducationData.org, 2022), a statistic that has surely been rendered obsolete by pandemic induced emergency online learning efforts.
Due to social distancing rules that pushed institutes to make the shift to online from in-person courses, or as researchers Tsang, Chong, Lam and Chu (2021) describe as “emergency COVID-19 online learning” or CoOL (p.1), most higher education students have now experienced an online course. However, the difference is, as Tsang et al. note, that “instructors and students, some of whom may not have had any experience with online teaching or learning and may not have been ready for the move, needed to cope with the changes quickly.” (p. 2).
This is an emergency situation was experienced worldwide with varying outcomes (Ebner et al., 2020; Tsang et al., 2021), and there are lessons to be learned, both positive and negative. Goh and Sandars (2020), in reflecting on the impact of the pandemic on medical education, write that the “COVID-19 pandemic has been a major disruptive change to medical education across the world and the use of technology has been rapidly and innovatively used in an attempt to maintain teaching and learning” (p. 16). They also acknowledge that to benefit from this disruption and (sometimes) ad-hoc implementation of technology, the challenges need to be addressed.
Fortunately, there is a rich, recent history of online learning research that can be used to help in this challenge. This chapter evaluates some of the recent literature regarding emergency COVID-19 online learning efforts, and re-examines a study conducted pre-pandemic that sought specifically to understand the factors that influenced decision makers in higher education when selecting the platforms and tools for the online learning environments at their institutions. This new look at the research asks the question what can be learned from the efforts to offer emergency online learning to guide the further development of online learning environments?
TopBackground
An issue to contend with in the switch to online learning, emergency or otherwise, is the process of selecting and implementing the platforms and tools that support online learners in higher education. This is something that to date has not been offered any clear and well-defined approaches. Faced with an expansive selection of tools, competing interests, limited time and budget, stakeholders involved with procurement of education technology must make many important decisions with uncertain outcomes. Fiona Hollands and Maya Escueta described this conundrum perfectly in their 2017 study EdTech Decision-making in Higher Education:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Collaborativism: Is an approach to learning that utilizes social learning techniques, especially utilizing activities that require collaboration and communication between learner.
Emergency Online Learning: As a result of social distancing rules adopted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many educational institutions pivoted to providing courses online. The result was the sudden, ad-hoc nature of the resulting methods used by teachers and institutions to bring courses quickly online.
Online Learning Tool: Software that student can use to work through ideas, concepts, or processes to create, perform, or respond to assignments and problems. LMS will often offer a collection of integrated online learning tools.
Social Learning Theory: The theory that people learn by observing others and explains how people learn new behaviors, values, and attitudes. The Internet offers ways to collaborate in learning despite being physically separated.
Learning Management System: Software applications for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of educational courses or training programs. LMS facilitate the delivery of instructional material to students, assists in the administration of assignments, quizzes, tests, and other activities, can track student progress, and manage data.
Online Learning: Courses offered by institutions that are conducted in a virtual space. Learners can engage with an academic institution in the traditional method of in person classes or through the virtual method computer mediated instruction. A blended-learning approach mixes in-person and online sessions.