By Mohan K, Technology Evangelist
Every five years, and perhaps once in a decade, we see a seismic innovation that defines and shapes the adoption of technology for a generation. The nineties saw the Internet revolution, quickly followed by the dot.com boom-bust that set the foundation for eCommerce and online shopping. Introduction of iPhones in 2007 with touch screen was followed by Android smartphones, and in a couple years cheap data and wireless network plans brought communication and computing in the hands of Billions, transforming lives in developing economies.
There are no points for guessing the lasting change that the pandemic and lockdown has brought to white-collar workforce, while also redefining consumer engagement with professional service providers. With all the doom and gloom of the pandemic – and there is certainly enough of it to go around – acceptance of remote <any service> has been the greatest silver lining.
High speed networks and secure Wi-Fi at homes and offices, tools like Skype, MS-Teams or Webex had been around for much of 2010s. But still, requests for remote engagement were met with skepticism:
• At the beginning of 2020, most managers were hesitant to embrace remote teams: asking your boss to accommodate work-from-home required jumping through corporate bureaucracy and layers of approvals.
• Schools and colleges could only function with students and teachers co-located together in class.
• Doctors and patients didn’t take to remote diagnosis; even for minor ailments they preferred to engage with in-person visits.
• Engagement with other professional like Accountants for tax filing or an Attorney for consultation meant driving across town for a face-to-face session.
These perceptions have transformed in a span of a few months, and we are seeing tools and technologies catching up to accommodate remote engagement across consumer and business domains.
For instance, while most of us in the field of technology have been focused on Work from Home, and eventual Return to Office, an entire generation of students, mentored by gritty teachers, administrators and parents have learnt to learn in the #NewNormal. We are experiencing the next wave that defines #RemoteAnything.
eLearning through the eyes of a middle-schooler
The new school year in Southern India starts in early June. This year it was at the peak of the second (or third?) national lockdown in India and the school administrators had the foresight to think ahead and quickly plan for online-only classes.
It has been five months into this remote-school year, and our middle-schooler has taken to e-Schooling like a duck to water. So, how did it start?
• For the first couple of weeks in June, the school called it for ‘voluntary trial’ classes lasting a total of two hours a day
• Teachers took turns operating the free-Zoom accounts while their colleagues perfected in-camera coaching while on their couch at home
• Kids being kids, figured out ‘cool’ techniques for disrupting class – taking over annotate and chat on screen, before teachers learnt to take back control
• Teachers who were used to commanding the class in a closed room felt self-conscious being in the spotlight where parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts could be lurking at the other end of the wire
• A week or two into this exercise, when the novelty of armchair proctoring wore off, parents quickly learnt to back-off from their camera interruptions. They too had work to do, remotely.
• The divide between digital have-and-have-nots was stark, even though a few tech-savvy parents stepped in to help and support their kids’ classmates. Some families could afford dedicated laptops or tablets while others managed with their parent’s smartphones and spotty WIFI connections
After a couple of weeks of trial classes, the Principal and administrators hosted a virtual PTA. The scheduled hour-long meeting stretched for nearly three-hours with parents venting frustration over the new-normal and difficulty their families were facing.
To their credit, the administrators took in much of the feedback and quickly reverted with clear, succinct guidelines for online school. The rules in my son’s school were simple, in line with what kids would expect in a classroom –
• Attendance was mandatory (taken virtually) and punctuality was expected (‘I had network connection issue and couldn’t join on time’ wasn’t an acceptable response)
• Students were expected to turn on their camera and weren’t allowed zoom backgrounds
• Students had to attend in uniform; of course,there was no way to check if they wore uniform pants or shoes
• Class notes would be shared in the school’s App and kids were to click and upload their hand-written homework.
After initially stitching together zoom-classes with by sharing links on Whatsapp, the school quickly moved to an App, in this case it was Uolo (no endorsement here!). Apps like this have emerged to seamlessly manage the class-life-cycle. In hindsight, this was design-on-the fly that simply works. No design thinking workshop or highly-paid consultants could have prepared teachers and students for e-learning any better!
Catch them young!
One could argue, this is not technology innovation per se. However, there are lessons here that communities around the world are learning; much of it is about adoption of technologies by the masses.
While rest of us in the workforce adapt to the new-normal and virtually engage with peers, doctors, lawyers, consultants and other white-collar service providers, kids of this generation are already shaping consumer behavior.
An entire generation of middle and high-school kids who spent a whole school year online are going to look at the world very differently. Armed with this experience, these kids aren’t going to question <if>they can attend classes at top universities remotely (Why not?).And by the time they get into the workforce in a decade, #RemoteAnything will be the new normal.
About the Author: Mohan K is a Technology Executive with a Multinational and a regular technology columnist. He can be reached via his LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohanbabuk/
