3 minutes
The world has had to adapt to digital media to continue academic education. Countries in Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and parts of the Americas had already implemented blended and virtual university education for bachelor's and master's degrees, but Guatemala was only taking its first steps.
Online learning uses digital e-learning platforms. This type of e-learningplatform, also called a virtual campus or Learning Management System (LMS), is used as a virtual learning space designed to facilitate distance training for businesses and educational institutions, offering freedom in terms of learning time and pace.
Today, a global pandemic that has affected every social level has also reached education, revealing the truth about technology. With technology's introduction to this generation, they were called “millennials or Generation Y.”What did this label refer to? To the generations born between 1982 and 1994, with the name deriving from the English word millennium. They have been considered a generation that grew up with the technology and popular culture developed between the 1980s and 2000, people familiar with technology.
Yet today, with this pandemic, these generations thought to be adapted to technology have been overwhelmed by it. They have had to adapt alongside other, less accustomed generations that now need technology to communicate with relatives, do business, or continue their civic education.
Technology is not just using a smartphone (now we can understand why even a child can use a phone), playing video games, or doing assignments on a computer.
It has become clear that many students, from preschool, primary, lower-secondary, and upper-secondary levels through university, have now learned to use platforms ranging from the simplest to conventional ones. Ultimately, they are all easy to use, but many students and teachers had never used them.
Distance education has lost one of its main characteristics , namely the freedom it gave students in terms of schedules, comfort, and so on. It has moved to fixed, stricter schedules to become efficient and effective. One could say that all students have been adapted to this new format very abruptly. Many have felt the change, parents do not trust this way of educating, and the technology most people have was not prepared to adapt to every educational platform.
Finally, parents should be reminded that technology offers excellent educational tools and platforms that are easy to use and efficient. Each teacher's dedication makes for enjoyable, interactive classes, so we must accept that tomorrow's education is already in our homes today.
As parents, we must support our children and adapt together to succeed. Virtual education in Guatemala has evolved and is now the new format, which could be an option for continuing academic education that not only works remotely but also develops the necessary qualities and competenciesfor students to succeed professionally.