Jump in or fall by the wayside.

Every business, sport, entertainment,  you can name them including education were forced into new environments since the Coronavirus outbreak which led to the stand still of normal traditional activities around the globe called Lockdown.

South Africans schools were also forced to closed down just before the official school closure on the 18 March 2020 leaving the department of basic education and other sectors to amend their schools or activity calendar for the year. Big Easter church gatherings were also forced to worship individually at home.

Coronavirus is a deadly flu like symptoms disease which started in China and spread all over the globe. The mighty continent of Africa was slowly becoming affected on daily basis with a rapid increase of infected people. South Africa, my birth country had a number of infections that rise day by day with others succumbing their lives. Coronavirus has also taught us that handwashing hygiene can no longer be ignored.

Jumping into new ways of doing things is no longer a matter of choice now, it is a matter of sustainability and survival. On daily basis there is a spring and marathon of new technologies targeting Education and businesses to provide remote online services to their target audiences.  In Education, teachers especially in public schools were anxiously worried how they will reconnect with their learners due to their lack of online computer skills. At the same time, learners too especially grade 12 were no longer so sure about their future.

The Department of Basic Education together with provincial departments published lists of Online tools for teachers to use to reconnect with their learners and start online remote learning such as Classdojo, Edmodo, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Seesaw, Moodle, Radio Stations and Television channels etc. Questions remain, are teachers capable of navigating and making choices amongst the online tools to use without any necessary guidelines, the cost of Data involve in using the tools, the stability of network in some areas which can affect the bandwidth, the online safety for learners who can accidentally go to inappropriate material online, the ability of parents to assist their kids online, all these issues can negatively affect the good course of continuing with learning at a distance.

It is a matter of jumping in or fall by the wayside to all of us. After reading some good work compiled by educationists around the globe giving guidance on what to do under this difficult time of Pandemic in Education.  They reminded me of the importance of Maslow's hierarchy of needs that Safety and Physiological needs come first than Bloom's Taxonomy. I was comforted and advise teachers and learners not to be anxious, their wellbeing and safety is paramount now and beyond lockdown. They should do what they can to keep their connections with their fellow learners and engage with their peers for positive feedbacks.