The Pandemic Shift to Remote Learning under Resource Constraints

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the transition of workflows across sectors to digital platforms. In education settings, stakeholders previously reluctant to integrate computing technology in the classroom now find themselves with little choice but to embrace it. This move to the digital brings additional challenges in underserved contexts with limited, intermittent, and shared access to mobile or computing devices and the internet. In this rapidly evolving digital landscape, we investigate how educational institutions (schools and non-profit organizations) working with underserved populations in India are managing the transition to online or remote learning. We conducted twenty remote interviews with students, teachers, and administrators from underserved contexts across India. We found that online learning efforts in this setting relied on a resilient human infrastructure comprised of students, teachers, parents, administrators, and non-profit organizations to help navigate and overcome the limitations of available technical infrastructure. Our research aims to articulate lessons for educational technology design in the post-COVID period, outlining areas for improvement in the design of online learning platforms in resource-constrained settings, and identifying elements of online learning that could be retained to strengthen the education system overall.

Insights from impacts of the digital divide on children in five majority world countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Jordan applied the grounded theory approach to analyse 122 documents published online between February and April 2020, with the majority being organisational blog posts; with a five-theme coding scheme being produced as the main output. Another related study by Ravi, Ismail, and Kumar (2021) conducted interviews with twenty adult participants in one MWC, India. Azubuike, Adegboye, and Quadri (2021) also collected primary data on the digital divide in one MWC, Nigeria, and used questionnaire as their research method.…”

“…For instance, a basic digital device like a mobile phone had to be shared among a household of four or even more members; younger children were often given much less use time, though their needs to socialise and learn were no less important than those of their older siblings. Sharing digital devices has been a common practice in resource-constrained settings in the pre-pandemic time (Ravi, Ismail, and Kumar 2021) and is regarded as a cultural expectation for women to fulfil in certain countries (Sambasivan et al 2018). Nonetheless, the pandemic rendered the use of digital technologies indispensable, aggravating the problems of sharing digital devices or inheriting old ones.…”

“…While there is some interview data emerging in the literature (e.g. Ravi, Ismail, and Kumar 2021), this has tended to provide adult perspectives. However, if we are to address the digital divide in respect to this population, it is critical to understand how CYP experienced it during this unprecedented period in different MWC contexts as well as how such experiences may contrast with those of their parents and professionals.…”

Orchestrating a digital platform ecosystem to address societal challenges: A robust action perspective

“…Societal challenges might be addressed by various actors other than government, including actors from the private or third sectors that may also deploy platforms. For example, third sector actors have deployed digital platforms to address a range of important problems such as coordinating volunteers (Mos, 2021), addressing hunger and food wastage (Michelini et al, 2018), enabling remote learning (Ravi et al, 2021), or integrating social services (McCall et al, 2021). In such examples, however, the scope and scale of challenges and their interventions are typically delimited a priori and digital platforms might merely support an established intermediary role of the third sector actor rather than implicate them as digital innovators or ecosystem orchestrators exploring open-ended arrangements to resolve open-ended challenges.…”

Six Feet Apart: Online Payments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…By offering services and goods online, businesses can avoid the physical limitations associated with COVID-19 transmission. Analogous works on understanding and augmenting physical experiences with digitization (in response to the pandemic) are far-ranging, looking at education [13,44,71], independent musicians, theatres [9], and cattle markets [55]. These works highlight both benefits and challenges associated with moving activities online.…”