Education in distance: pro et contra
F.B. Mussina, Senior lecturer of the Department of History of Arts and Art management of the Faculty of Arts of Kazakh National Academy of Choreography
It has been almost a month since we all live in new realities and together we learn to live in new reality of quarantine. And one of the main challenges for teachers was distance learning. We all urgently had to eliminate our digital illiteracy, learn new platforms, prepare demonstration materials, rebuild the structure of lectures and seminars, in short, to research in deep the world of online learning. And I had to change my mind literally on the go, since the educational process at universities just reached the finish line – to the examination session and the defense of diplomas.
But, as known, restrictions also give rise to new opportunities for those who are ready to change.
With the competent presentation of the Academy’s IT department, we quickly mastered the ZOOM platform, one by one we uploaded tasks to Platonus, checked, put marks, made presentations, combed the Internet in search of materials … in a word, there were three times more work for teachers and university administration!
These days we recall the wonderful days of personal communication with students, and they miss everyday lectures that one day seemed to be a difficult obligation. By the way, like any medal, in this situation there is a downside! Finally, we have one hundred percent attendance and there are no latecomers at all. (Unless the Internet is unstable.) Working students sit at home and study with great pleasure!
It’s a pity, of course, that you can’t always show videos that are not online and not all students in cities have stable Internet. It is very difficult for teachers of the faculty of choreography to lack tactile contact and personal presence during dance classes. The attempts to search online lectures on our highly specialized subjects did not succeed, there is practically none information, and available content is dedicated for a wide non-professional audience.
But there are advantages of that! So, we have to create our own content. Anyway, there are a lot of tasks and plans, we do not spend time in vain in quarantine! I think we will all come out of it enriched with new knowledge and skills, and most importantly, we will appreciate the well-known statement of the seer Saint-Exupery: “The greatest luxury in the world is the luxury of human communication!” we would like to add – especially when it does not concentrate on virtual communication.
