Global online community for learners & educators — Need of the hour

According to UNESCO, about 91% (which is more than 1.5 billion) of students and youth across the planet are affected by school and university closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Life after global lockdown will be different. A new definition of ‘normal’ will appear. And till the time we get a vaccination the schools may remain shut or even if they open up, I doubt the presence of students. The global recovery of the pandemic will eventually take from a few months to a few years time and till then the children will remain away from what they love the most, the learning. On the other side, the educators and the teachers will also remain away from their love affair of teaching and co-learning with all young fellows.

Tough time for schools.

Just like any other professional or business institutions our schools never thought of such a lockdown. So they were all unprepared. Initially, they either gave homework or circulated the notice for closure. But who would have thought that this may go for months? So now they are outsourcing different ed-tech companies to carry out the idea of online education. And since the existing teaching staff has little to no experience in online or distance education through the internet the idea is somehow falling flat.

Parents looking for other options with a confused mind.

Parents are desperate about getting their children back to school. But since there is no school and no idea of when it will resume, parents are looking out for more options. It’s probably the biggest migration of schoolers into homeschoolers. This may create another havoc problem in the future. Because in the case of alternative forms of education the active participation of parents is very essential. And if parents are hurrying into the decision they may face difficulty in the coming times.

So what is the possible solution?

A global online community of learners and educators is the best possible solution.

Imagine a website from where you can either download a phone-based application or desktop application or if you have a smart tv or a smart dongle like amazon fire tv or apple tv you can simply install an app and start learning. An amazing mix of school/board/curriculum or non-syllabus or no-curriculum-based learning, catering to both school goers and non-school goers like homeschoolers & un-schoolers. A global ecosystem of education where everyone is either a learner or an educator.

Imagine something like ‘play cluster’ or ‘learning cluster’ within the app which is a localised group of learners, educators & parents, where they can plan multiple localised activities, like fixing up a local time to play or learn. Say for example a society has 50 homes with children of different age groups and they all have a play cluster where the timing of the play is 4 pm to 6 pm. So all the children who are willing to play can gather at the ground together. Similarly, girls can plan their own play cluster and even parents can create their own custom cluster. Hence making the time utilization more effective.

True democratic learning.

Today the learning is categorised between many. Society wise, state-wise, class-wise, region-wise, and also country wise. Imagine a platform which will remove all these categories and make the learning a universal practice, where a Hindi speaking learner and learn from french speaking learners or educators. Where the best can support the worst. Where the poor will get the same access to all learning materials. No discrimination at all.

The idea may sound bizarre now. But believe me, all big inventions went through the same criticism of bizarreness.