TECHNOLOGY AND THE PANDEMIC’S IMPACT ON EDUCATION

Over the last year, our way of learning at Mt. Hood has changed completely. I remember when we first started remote learning; I was a little nervous, as I had never taken online classes before. Now that I’ve been attending classes online for about a year, it’s definitely given me a different perspective on school and learning, overall.

I believe there are certainly benefits to online classes in some ways but there are also challenges. The drawbacks include not being able to interact with peers as much, and missing out on the in-person experiences inside a classroom.

This past year has surely impacted the way students learn, and it will impact the future of education.

I think online classes will become much more common, especially here at MHCC. The growth of tools and resources (and our shared experience the past year) will probably create more opportunities for students to learn online, since for many of us there is greater convenience with remote learning.

According to the U.S Census Bureau, homeschooling of students in grades K-12 has also increased – which could change the learning choices of future Mt. Hood students:

“By fall, 11.1% of households with school-age children reported homeschooling (Sept. 30-Oct. 12). A clarification was added to the school enrollment question to make sure households were reporting true homeschooling rather than virtual learning through a

public or private school. That change represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points and a doubling of U.S. households that were homeschooling at the start of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the prior year.” (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/homeschooling-on-the-rise-during-covid-19-pandemic.html)

In sum, I believe the pandemic has forever changed the way students learn, and it’ll be interesting to see how online and possibly hybrid (a mix of remote and in-person) learning continues to evolve.