[Video] Online education now the new normal due to coronavirus pandemic
By Park Jun-heePublished : March 19, 2020 - 15:09
As the start of the spring semester has been postponed over the coronavirus outbreak and online classes are encouraged to minimize infections in the classrooms, teachers are trying to adapt to remote teaching.
The majority of universities in South Korea started to provide online classes. This comes as social distancing is the most effective way to prevent the cluster infections of COVID-19. Professors are notified that they should conduct their classes via online solutions through the end of March, but the online-only class might be extended further if COVID-19 infections persist.
Many professors and university students, however, are finding it hard to teach and learn remotely, mostly through a range of online lecture programs, video chat software and even KakaoTalk messenger app.
Experts say that a drastic swift toward online lectures poses a massive challenge for both students and educators. Universities are having a hard time coping with technical problems, such as checking attendance and sudden shutdown of programs that disrupt lectures.
In many universities, servers for handling online lectures crashed, failing to accommodate the surge in traffic, while students struggled to connect to school websites. Yet professors across the nation are searching for better ways to conduct their classes online. Please check out the video to see how one university professor in Seoul is preparing online lectures.
Video script and article by Park Jun-hee (junheeep97@heraldcorp.com)
Video shot and edited by Park Subin (qlstnqkr1204@heraldcorp.com)