Isn't hindsight such a wonderful thing? How little did we know about online and remote and blended learning back in March 2020, or am I making assumptions on behalf of my learned colleagues in further education who were already proficient hyflex teachers? I, personally, really had no idea.
The anticipation of the lockdown did not feel real. I was at the time teaching in a modern new-build business school, which meant we had all the technology required at the touch of a button.
Reflecting on the moment when the team trialled the use of Google meets, from different rooms, to see if it worked, and laughing when we realised it did. We could see each other staring at cameras shouting “hello are you there?” or “I think you are on mute?”. “It’ll be fun”, we thought - how naive we were about what was heading our way. The March 2020 lockdown saw lecturers in FE working harder than ever to keep their current students online and engaged and working towards completion of their qualifications.
We began to meet colleagues and students online and realised how easy the technology and various platforms were to navigate. At this point though, reality still had not kicked in, and it still felt almost like a game. I felt like I had been running at full speed for so long, I had no idea how to get off the merry-go-round. A regular, daily drive between two or more campuses was normal, but to suggest an online meeting would have seemed questionable and a potential barrier to learning, assessment and progression at that time. I look back on that time spent in the car, burning fuel unnecessarily, racing around wasting travel time. It was not a sustainable approach, or meeting our own organisational green agenda. Were other FE providers practising in the same way?
