EPIK Experience: EDTech and Distance Learning

It's been...a while...

Originally, I'd started drafting this post when my EPIK-mandated desk-warming had just begun at the start of winter, but COVID-19's rapid spread across the globe has caused me to reconsider this post's target audience. At first, this was going to be a continuation of my series, EPIK Experiences: Guest Teaching in South Korea. However, so many of my teacher friends and role models back home have needed to make the switch into online and distance learning. To anyone outside of education, they might think this could be accomplished with some video-chatting, but the reality is that many teachers aren't familiar with the technology available out there.

This could be for a variety of reasons (too overworked to research effective edtech, lack of budgeting, restrictions that come about when 'teaching to the test', veteran teachers who have established successful classroom procedures/curriculum). Really, there could be a whole mix of reasons that make slowly integrating technology into our classrooms so difficult--let alone a sudden reliance on technology in a classroom-less time of quarantine.

I've never spoken much about my exact plans beyond EPIK, so I guess now is as good a time as ever to share them: Educational Media and Technology. Last year, I'd stumbled across NYU's Digital Media Design for Learning MA and have since created a list of programs I hope to apply to within the next few months. I have always been passionate about education (with a special focus on literature of course), but I have also always been passionate about my creative outlets. Edtech, until now, had been the balance between serving my students and indulging in my creativity.

I have hopes to work in museums, libraries, and other informal, public learning spaces, but COVID-19 has shown me--really--that I cannot forget my first steps into the adult world as a teacher, as someone on the front lines of education. Because in the end, these are the people who are spending their quarantine worrying about their families, themselves--and how they're going to help their students still learn. 

The Broadband Gap

Schools all over the world are adjusting to distance learning, but their biggest hurdle--beyond an introduction to using new technology--is the broadband gap among students.

In the above slideshow, a Korean Naver article informs readers that only about 1% of Korean schools are prepared to move online, with cities and counties being asked NOW (March 31st) to conduct surveys on students' tech accessibility at home.

The American article  lets us know that approximately 14% of students across the country do not have reliable internet access at home.

The reality is that COVID-19 not only shows Americans the gaps in our healthcare system, but that COVID-19 also shows the world just how severe poverty can affect students' education.

Teachers have always known this, but face-to-face classes mitigated even just some of the disparity. Schools provided a safe-space, food, and a teacher whose job was to care for that student and their educational well-being. Now, with COVID-19 disrupting students' learning across the globe, the question remains: How can we teach online classes if we can't guarantee students can get online?

Unfortunately, as a 25 year old guest teacher in Korea with not a lot of equity-law experience, I don't have the answers. I know some teachers have made worksheet packets and others are lobbying their districts to provide mobile hotspots to students. 

​Anyyywayy...

Look below the cut for some EdTech I've been investigating at least for the online learning videos/tasks I've been asked make...

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