26 Dec Are Digital Classrooms the Future?

We all know that schools are adding pieces of technology into the classroom every day, so it makes me think about what the future of education, in terms of physical space will be in the next 10 years. 

From the way that we work to the way that we learn, everything is changing so fast.

Now that almost every job can be performed on the comfort of our home, it was a matter of time until teaching would come with that flexibility as well. These days, you no longer have to move to China to teach English. There are companies like VIPKID, were teachers can provide English lessons to Chinese students online from the comfort of their couch.

VIPKID have more than 200k students from 300 cities. They are opened in 35 countries, have more than 60k teachers signed up and half million students. They were ranked as #1 by flexjobs.com and have been featured in Forbes magazine. 

This type of online options come as competition for ESL schools, however, could this happen in the future for regular schools?

I’ve taken courses online, joining an online “classroom” before, and yes, it is definitely not the same as having a group of classmates with you to interact. There is also the fact that taking an 8 hours class sitting in my bed every day was killing my back. The noises around the house, the lack of socialization, were also distractions, just to name a few.

On the other hand, what I did notice was that for some reason, I was paying more attention to the teachers in the live video than the teacher in the real classroom. Why? It was feeling more personal. 

When a teacher is walking around the classroom, you see a person talking to a bunch of people, making eye contact here and there, however, in a live video, the person tends to be looking at the camera creating the perception that is looking directly at you, bringing this more personal feeling.

With all of that being said, it sounds great if you are a teacher, but not so great for us parents. If this happens, it will affect the budget of every family. One of the parents would have to stay at home which means only one income. We will have to get a bigger space with a designated area for study, as well as the right furniture. Kids would be spending way more time with us and less time interacting with others. 

We have to take in consideration as well the health issues. Kids will start losing their vision on early age, after spending 8 hours a day looking at the screen. 

I know we are far from this, or at least I hope. However, is it crazy to think that this could happen?