How to crush a non-informatic virus by using your fingertips

The World Bank states 1.6 billion students around the planet are not attending the school due to Covid-19, the new kind of corona-virus. In Peru, the (theoretically) mandatory quarantine imposed to hold the virus was extended until April 12th. Considering the classes began last March 16th, it means a 2020 Annual Course’s month is lost, and it’s possible that coming back to the classroom takes more time.

Around the globe, the initiatives to avoid the students to lose the scholarship’s rhythm are beginning to outbreak and that’s good. Many teachers have recalled a not-so-new ally to achieve it – information technology. And they are taking any resource, any platform to continue, because it’s not about we are on vacation, we have kept not to infect. It’s not the same thing.

Along Peru, the government is setting up a whole platform including the public radio & television, the Ministry of Education, and some associations which are implementing collaborative and friendly environments. Along Piura? I learned this week it does, and it happens in Sullana Province, Marcavelica District indeed, more specifically in Vista Florida Village.

Virtual classroom

14854 José Santos Chocano School, as thousands of schools across Peru, is closed doors but not its communication channels. So Principal Leonila Saavedra had the idea to do in virtual environment wwhat was interrupted in physical or presential ones.

Let’s push pause here because this school and this principal don’t appeared in the air after a blink. It was one of the seven schools across Piura Region recognized by the Ministry of Education (Minedu, as its acronyme in Spanish) with Valora grade, a kind of certification granted for innovating all processes of management and teaching, three years ago.

In José Santos Chocano’s case, its competitive advantage was precisely the use of tools based on information technology. Let’s get back to March 2020. Mrs Saavedra summoned the engineer Iván Martín Rotta, who worked with the platform that allowed her the Minedu’s recognizement in 2017, and who has developed interesting related ideas about this issue at Piura’s César Vallejo University, where he studied.

The engineer designed a virtual classroom as a technologic solution, first for the teachers to coordinate strategies and contents, then for the parents to join the companion of their kids, ultimately to incorporate the children in the whole process. Look what an interesting strategy to add all the members of the basic educational community. If they can add later to the ones who are not part of this community but who are going to contribute in the process, perfect! They’re going a good way!

The teachers who participate in this experience see it much expectant, judging what they have shared on the virtual classroom’s forum. How did I have Access to the system not having an user and a password? Surprise, surprise! When my radar detected this story, I asked Iván to launch two simple questions: what they think of the environment, what challenge it produces them. Then, the quotes you’ll see on this op-ed are spontaneous reactions of those proffessionists. Get your own conclusions.

“They’re the right place to ask questions, to propose activities, or to solve doubts, because there’s no only interaction by asking the teacher, but seeing also what other students ask,” teacher Luis Estrada wrote.

“The virtual education is other vogue in those times and its use gets into different current spaces, although it also has some inconsistences, for example, not all the parents know those virtual environments, who will accomplish a very important role in this process,” teacher Paola Farfán adds.

“Anyway, despite social disagreements, the current scenario makes the virtual education to be already the solution for the problems in Peruvian education. It’s true that a big advantage of virtual education there is a lower Covid-19 contagion risk, because to access the classes for the students, eliminates the displacement to a specific location, situation not able to be done in this emergency,” teacher Yuliana Astudillo complements.

Growing hurts

For the teachers to adapt to the environment, even borning in the Informatics Age, has not been easy because the traditional education usually trains everybody for a predictable space: the board in the background, the door beside the board, the desks in front of the board, teacher’s desk beside the board, wide windows, four walls and a ceiling.

But in the virtual environment, that fades, and especially another factor – time. Perhaps it’s not necessary the 45-minute pedagogical hour. Perhaps you require more time, perhaps you need less. Everything is going to depend on your attention and understanding rate.

And that has been the same challenge of the teachers in Vista Florida, Marcavelica. Let’s reflectionate through their own reactions on their school’s virtual classroom.

“Too much confused in the beginning because we have changed our traditional way to work in classrooms due to the use of a mobile device, lap-top, or computer,” teacher Farfán underlines.

“However, when investigating a bit more and having an virtual education technology  back-up, I feel more secure. That’s why we have focused that in this emergency it’s important to strengthen the interaction media among the students, teachers, and contents, as well as promoting the use of infovirtual tools because the educational stakers will move in a digital environment,” shee adds.

“It’s complicated in the beginning, but to have the motivation of knowing that your students will not lose the Academic Year, makes we work hard on learning with the expert Iván Martín Rotta these virtual educational environments, those are also totally free, so facing this emergency,” teacher Astudillo opines.

“It has not been easy to enter the field of virtual education, but with the back-up of technology we are receiving by the expert Iván Martín Rotta, the learning becomes easier,” teacher Estrada says in his side. “Meanwhile, I can opine that the virtual education requires teachers with technological profiles, but also human, practical, pedagogical, and ethical, different to presential education’s.”

Well, it’s overunderstood that one of the contributions of the Internet to the life of everybody is now we can custom the contents we receive, precisely, to give utility and pleasure to our experience. And why shouldn’t the education be also a pleasant experience, as well as useful?

“The education in virtual environment also will help to improve the student’s mood for not feeling missed. We also ccan approach the care measures before the Covid-19, helping the work the Peruvian State comes doing,” teacher Astudillo stresses.

And this is every crisis’ about, putting creative, not letting to overwhelm by the problem and the impact it can have over our lives. It’s about how we turn every problem into a solution, but also, and this is the lesson of the story I share you today, how the unity of many talents and wills can make something more than solving the problem – innovating, reinventing, becoming a better version of who I used to be.

And Peru is rich in that but it fears to leave the comfort zone (I’m not meaning you go out your home during the quarantine). Vista Florida is understanding it, and according to engineer Rotta told me, other schools are thinking to join. Congratulations about that! Goa head!

My radar also has detected that a similar initiative is making in Fe y Alegría 48 Network in Tambogrande. I don’t have hard facts, but I promise when I know something else, you’ll know it on here.