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In response to the rapidly changing situation regarding Covid-19 and recognising the very genuine concerns of both staff and learners, we have decided to suspend face to face teaching with effect from Monday 23 March. The last classes will be taught on Friday 20 March. Please do not come to college after Friday.

This decision follows consultation with the other London Institutes for Adult Learning. Although the Department for Education has not yet mandated that schools and colleges should be shut, the public message yesterday identified the need to avoid non-essential travel and social gatherings. London has also been identified as a potential hot spot for the virus.

I have responsibility for the health and safety of all staff and learners and in this current situation, I feel that we need to suspend face to face teaching and transfer our activity to virtual learning.

Your learning will continue with us. Tutors will deliver the last two weeks of your course through digital learning and will provide support through the use of technology.

Subject to the health situation with Covid-19, our plan is to resume normal teaching activities from the start of next term on Monday 20 April.

In the meantime, please keep checking the website for updates.

Helen Hammon

What is COVID-19 and how might the outbreak affect you? Find out more about coronavirus and explore its worldwide implications.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/covid19-novel-coronavirus

Businesses and educational institutions across the world are rapidly responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing travel restrictions and work from home (WFH) and remote learning policies. To ensure business continuity during this crisis, these organizations must have robust, easy-to-use communication tools that enable remote work and learning. Video conferencing and group chat are coming to the rescue.

WFH: Leveraging Video Communications to Keep Employees Safe

The COVID-19 crisis is expected to have a lasting impact on how organizations view remote work — changing with it the communications and collaboration industry forever. Guidelines are being laid out by health and government agencies, and many businesses are rolling out mandatory WFH. For enterprises that are prepared, it’s “business as usual” or as close as one can get to it in times like these. However, for those that don’t have comprehensive WFH tools, this is a transformative moment.

Frost & Sullivan’s early data shows that this wave of WFH is creating an unprecedented base of new users as well as a rapid rise in usage among existing users that will leave an indelible impact on technology adoption and growth in years to come.

The technology and usability improvements that collaboration tools have seen over the last few years are coming handy, just as the world needs them the most. UCC providers from across the spectrum have also risen to the challenge and announced free offerings to accommodate quick and easy access to users who are working and learning from home. 8x8, Amazon Chime, AT&T, Avaya Spaces, Bluejeans, CafeX, Cisco Webex, Google Hangouts Meet, Lifesize, LogMeIn GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, PGi, RingCentral, Slack, and Zoom are among the many providers that have either announced free services or extended the reach and removed time limits for existing free offers. This roster of vendors is expected to grow as the number of COVID-19 cases rise globally.

Providers across the board are reporting unprecedented growth in usage. Cloud video conferencing service provider Pexip has seen 200% growth in cumulative usage over the past month, with peak usage surging to nearly six times the peak in Jan. Similarly, BlueJeans has seen three times global usage growth, and Fuze has seen an increase in meetings by 251% over the past few weeks. Communication device vendors like Poly and Logitech are seeing a spike in demand too. Meeting room devices, that pair with leading cloud services to deliver a better together experience, are a high growth market. Neat, which entered the market in late 2019 with a portfolio of meeting room devices designed exclusively for Zoom, has been inundated with orders/inquiries, many of which are specifically being quoted by customers with COVID-19-related concerns.

Below we take a closer look at the growth and how several providers are responding to COVID-19:

Cisco Webex

• Webex has reported 6.7 billion meeting minutes so far in March and is hosting more than 4 million meetings a day globally, not including one-on-one calls. This represents a significant growth compared to 6 billion meeting minutes per month announced in Jan.

• On March 10, Webex reported that more than 30% of its top global enterprises have asked to help them scale remote work — either increasing the number of users with access to Webex Meetings, or the overall volume of meetings taking place.

• As of March 10, volume on Webex Teams messaging increased 35% from Feb.'s daily highs.

• In Feb., Cisco reported that the number of meetings and total minutes had doubled among users in Japan, Singapore, China, and South Korea. In the first week of March, it continued to rise. Free sign-ups in the then impacted countries were up seven times over pre-outbreak sign-up rates. In the first week in March, that trend held steady. EMEA sign-ups jumped by 211%.

Microsoft

• On March 13, Microsoft reported that its Teams collaboration platform has seen a 500% increase in meetings, calls, and conferences.

• Teams also saw a 200% increase in usage on mobile devices in China, since Jan. 31.

• Microsoft launched a comprehensive COVID-19 resource to provide updated, cross-company information. Cross-company content areas include remote working, education, community support, and tech support.

Neat

• Neat has seen solid demand since its all-in-one video appliances went GA in Jan. Sales have risen by high double-digits week-over-week for the first two weeks of March. Orders for the week beginning March 9 doubled over the prior week.

• Based on its current run rate, Neat’s sales for 2020 are poised to be five times its original projections for the year.

• For the weekend of March 14-15, Neat hit a record number of orders booked compared to any other weekend since it announced its products in Oct. 2019. Over the same weekend, Neat also took in the largest number of orders from its ecommerce site as compared to weekends past.

• A fair number of state and local agencies have purchased Neat Bars, specifically to command their COVID-19 efforts.

Zoom

• While Zoom hasn’t shared usage stats since the onset of COVID-19, Frost & Sullivan estimates that it has seen “dramatic increases” in usage, significantly up from its 100 billion minutes run rate at the end of January. On March 11, 343,000 people globally downloaded the Zoom app, 60,000 in the U.S., as compared to 90,000 people worldwide (27,000 in the U.S.) two months ago, according to Apptopia.

• Prior to COVID-19, Zoom reported that’s its cloud service logs more than 40 million hosted meetings and 8.6 billion meeting minutes per month.

• In 2020, Zoom stock has gone up by 58% (as of March 16). Overnight, Zoom has become a mainstream communications tool as well as a social platform for millions, including school and college students, church and concert-goers, and families and friends looking to connect amid social distancing.

• Last week, Zoom ranked third among all free apps in Apple’s App Store, behind only TikTok and Google. As more and more live events turn into virtual events due to travel restrictions, Zoom Webinars are seeing a significant uptake too.

• Zoom was among the first in the UC industry to turn a live industry event, its analyst Perspectives 2020 event, into a virtual one as a result of COVID-19. In addition to video conferencing and content sharing, Zoom interspersed the day-long event with interactive polls and chat to keep attendees engaged. Virtual backgrounds came in handy for attendees joining from their homes, and Zoom’s real-time transcription saved time on note-taking, so attendees could focus on the content. With Perspectives 2020, Zoom set the stage for a well-run virtual event in times when travel restrictions are becoming the norm. See Zoom’s best practices for hosting a digital event here.

Remote Learning: Covid-19 Solidifies Emerging Trends

Educational institutions across the globe have taken a big hit from COVID-19. Colleges and universities in particular are at high risk of spreading the disease due to dense student body populations. Similarly, hundreds of K-12 schools have been shut down to contain the outbreak. In response, school administrators and teachers have been given the onerous task to convert in-person curriculums into online courses, and quickly put in place virtual classroom solutions to allow millions of students to continue learning from their homes.

Online education has seen exponential growth in recent years. From 2008 to 2017, the percentage of undergraduates enrolled in the U.S. in at least one distance education class expanded from 20-32% of all enrollments, according to the Institute of Education Sciences. Often students are the pioneers in new technology adoption, setting the pace for other vertical industries. Educational institutions have been an avid adopter of advanced synchronous and asynchronous communications for online learning. Rapid consumerization, the impact of social media, and the growing popularity of flipped classrooms and blended learning have led to the increasing use of technology in education.

Video conferencing-based remote learning keeps students engaged with features like whiteboarding, annotation, group chat, breakout rooms, attention tracking, etc. Many K-12 schools have been avid users of Google Classroom, the online platform that allows teachers to post videos and assignments Covid-19 has unexpectedly and suddenly shone a light on the need for a comprehensive plan to substitute in-person classes with remote learning not only during contingencies but also during normal times as a means to improve the quality and reach of education.

Many universities are already leveraging video conferencing as a key part of their educational toolset. Arizona State University, one of the largest universities in the nation, tested video conferencing in the second week of March and held 170 classes with 7,000 students using Zoom. Similarly, UC Berkeley has suspended in-person classes and is offering courses using Zoom and course-capture solutions. The University of Bologna, Italy, which has an enrollment of over 80,000 students, switched 90% of its courses to online using Microsoft Teams to run virtual classes within 3-4 days after the Italian government closed the doors.

Vendors that have announced support for education include Avaya which is offering Avaya Spaces collaboration software free to all education institutions along with non-profit organizations worldwide. Similarly, Zoom has lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for K-12 schools in the U.S. as well as several countries.

Long-term Implications: Why is This Time Different?

This isn’t the first time that the video conferencing industry has seen a spike in demand. In years past, events such as Sept. 11 and the SARS outbreak have prompted businesses to use video meetings in lieu of traveling to work. However, past surges failed to leave a lasting impact on the industry. Frost & Sullivan research shows that only 6% of all meeting rooms globally are video conferencing enabled. The scale of the disruptions caused by COVID-19, however, is truly unprecedented and is expected to fundamentally change user behavior towards remote work and online education.

Part of what makes this crisis different is the technology that is enabling the response. Previous generations of video conferencing technology were complex, clunky, and costly to operate. Modern video meetings are simple to deploy, easy to use, and affordable for businesses of all sizes. However, the stickiness this time goes beyond technology considerations and touches upon human nature – the one constant that impacts adoption more than any other factor.

In recent research, Frost & Sullivan has pointed at the growing future of work trends such as the rise in distributed, dynamic, and on-demand work and next-gen cloud and software delivery that are changing work as we know it. COVID-19 will accelerate the latent demand for flexible and agile work that allows technology to connect people better and improve work life balance.

Looking Ahead

As the containment response to COVID-19 leads to quarantined cities, enforced social distancing, and office and school closures, its impact on video conferencing in 2020 and years beyond will be disruptive. It will also have a far-reaching and sustainable impact on user awareness, and ultimately, acceptance and adoption of remote working. Adoption will be shaped by many factors, including:

• Growing macroeconomic uncertainty – The ramifications on IT budgets will be significant. Growing fears of prolonged economic weakness often mean IT budgets will get constrained. It’s reasonable to assume that video conferencing spending will take a hit. However, the longer impact of budget cuts will likely be offset by the lower total cost of ownership (TCO) of today’s meeting solutions. Budget-friendly, robust all-in-one video conferencing appliances and USB conference cams for huddle rooms and small meeting spaces will continue to see rapid growth as they offer an easy-to-use, flexible option, designed for the modern workplace.

• Cloud- and hardware-as-a service (HaaS) – “As-a-service” models will thrive since they minimize strain on IT budgets and allow meeting room-enablement over a single OpEx-based contract, while allowing organizations to flexibly scale usage up and down as needed.

• Hyperscale computing – As usage grows exponentially over the next months, COVID-19 will be a true test of public cloud providers’ ability to scale without downgrading the quality and reliability of the service. Providers across the board have expanded capacity to meet the increased demands of both paid and free users. Many already have robust cloud infrastructures that can sustain peaks in usage. However, scaling a platform beyond a certain threshold isn’t just a matter of additional network capacity, it also requires adding physical hardware within existing data centers. Many providers may also be faced with the predicament of limiting new free signups to ensure quality and consistency for existing users. Providers with a truly scalable and globally distributed architecture will stem the tide better than others.

• Supply chain disruption – Many device vendors that have a healthy inventory have reported that they aren’t seeing any material consequence so far from supply chain disruptions. Some of the best supply chains in the world are in China. Video conferencing device vendors that have increasingly built their products using “standardized” components versus custom componentry will be situated better to combat supply chain disruptions. Similarly, vendors that are more distributed and have multiple suppliers for the most critical components will see lesser disruptions.

• Free to paid conversion – The rapid response by UCC providers and the willingness to come forward and support users with free offerings during the sudden disruptions caused by COVID-19 is unprecedented. This will generate significant goodwill for the providers, an immense base of free users, and the opportunity to convert them to paid accounts in future. Though this bodes well for technology adoption, it also poses several challenges. Providers will have to decide how long to extend their free services in a very fluid environment. The ability to gracefully wean users off of free services into a paid engagement will ultimately determine if providers will see a sustainable revenue impact from the upsurge in user demand. Freemium conversion rates for SaaS communications software have typically been in the low single-digits, though companies like Slack and Zoom have seen significantly higher conversion rates. During COVID-19, millions of users are experiencing first-hand the power of video collaboration to connect people. This viral growth will lead to higher than expected conversion rates over the mid-to-long term.

• Security and manageability – The rapid introduction of video tools for workers across the organization and in educational settings will raise the inevitable question about data collection, security, and user privacy. As organizations across the globe hunker down and focus on providing easy access to all, the long-term implications on security, manageability, and ability to monitoring will require comprehensive provider support.

Published for the first time here:
https://www.nojitter.com/technology-trends/covid-19s-long-term-impact-remote-work-and-learning

Quick links:

11 tips for using Google Classroom

How to deliver lessons via video

What other tools can you use?

Benefits and risks of free technology

Be aware not all student may have technology access

11 tips for using Google Classroom

1. What’s the lingo?

Google Classroom – This is where you put your announcements, lesson material and assignments. Files, videos, images and links can all be uploaded here. You can also mark work and have control over whether students have permission to comment or post.

Google Classroom Stream – Just like a chatroom, Google Stream allows students to post comments and ask questions.

Google Docs – A bit like an online word document, Google Docs allows you to create a file to be shared with others.

Google Hangout – An online chat facility where you can speak with or without video over the internet connection.

2. Where do I find everything?

Luckily, there are plenty of videos online to assist you in setting up Google Classroom.

You can use the links above, and these videos, to talk you through the step-by-step process of setting up your classroom.

3. Set up all teachers with class registers and data

It’s a good idea for school leaders to set up every teacher for Google Classroom using SIMs, says Freya Odell, a teacher of English at St George’s International School in Rome.

4. Offer training and planning time

“As soon as we knew the schools would close, we had in-person training on using Google Classroom,” says Odell.

All teachers received a day of CPD on the different programmes, and then one-to-one support was provided for any teachers who needed specific help with setting up their classes.

The following day, lessons began.

“This gave everyone a bit of breathing space, and meant we weren’t all panicking about getting lessons ready straight away,” she says.

5. Check your servers

Anything you’re running from your school servers might require larger capacity than normal – make sure you’ve checked with your IT team that what your planning won’t overload the system.

6. Don’t over-complicate it

Jennie Devine, principal at St Louis International school Milan, which has been closed for three weeks, suggests less is more when teaching remotely.

“On our first few days we tried to put up videos, quizzes, worksheets, etc – students found it tricky to navigate and they weren't sure what order to do things in,” she explains. “We now try to aim for a lesson video (maybe two parts) and any other materials or quizzes attached to the lessons.”

7. Create a routine

Devine and Odell agree: you need to have a system and stick to it.

Odell suggests organising one folder per day per class.

She begins each lesson with a Google Hangout in the classroom area, and then students can ask questions on the Classroom Stream (see terminology in point 1).

Students can complete their work and post it in the Classroom.

“We can easily track who has and hasn’t done their work this way,” says Odell.

Devine adds that clear rules help to avoid repeated questions clogging up your notifications.

“You need to establish certain norms and behaviours. Comments should be regarding the work only, and they also have to read the previous comments before asking a question,” she says.

8. Take control with your settings

If you’re not careful, you can be crushed by the notifications – sort out your settings so you’re not being spammed with notifications every time someone comments on a document.

You also need to be able to switch off when you’re off – be strict with your working hours and don’t let the laptop rule your life.

Too much screen time is not good for your mental health, so set an out of office message on when you need to step away from the computer.

10. Be clear and realistic in your instructions

Not all students will have printers or paper materials at home, says Devine, so ensure your tasks can all be done without printing off any extras.

“I keep the tasks very straightforward,” adds Odell. “If students feel their tech abilities aren't up to being able to edit the documents, then they use Google Docs and just share the link. I can comment directly onto their document when I feedback.”

If you don't think that would work for you, another system you might want to try is setting up a separate assignment in Classroom for handing work in.

“I have personally found that having a daily assignment called "ATTACH work here" works well for my students,” says Devine. “Students can upload all of their tasks in one go, and I can see who has completed work.

"Otherwise, students start attaching work to video lessons and it can be confusing if there is more than one video.”

10. No faces in videos

All students should know to close their cameras when using Google Hangout with their teachers, says Odell. This should be communicated from the start, and all students should know to not show their faces when talking to teachers.

11. Share your logins

As per safeguarding guidelines, IT staff and leaders should share teachers' logins, and no chats should be done on teachers' private logins. Leaders should be regularly checking the content of messages.

Teachers should communicate with students only via the school-sanctioned channels, and students should also be told how to expect communications to arrive from their teachers, and to report any communication other than the sanctioned one to the safeguarding lead.

How to deliver lessons via video

Teachers need to get up to speed with the dos and don’ts of video-conferencing etiquette. If it’s not something you’ve done regularly, it can feel a touch daunting but there are some quick and easy ways to ensure that you have as good a video-conferencing set-up as possible, whatever your location, and avoid any potentially embarrassing moments.

One thing that should underpin all the below is to ensure that you are fully aware of your school's safeguarding policy around whether or not you can appear on camera to pupils, or should just be a "voice" being delivered to them via the video-conferencing software you are using. As noted above, children should definitely not appear on camera.

1. Have a clear background free from distractions

When setting up your home video-conferencing location, make sure there is nothing in the background that will be either distracting or potentially embarrassing.

For example, it may be tempting to set yourself up in front of your bookcase to show your erudite ways – but then you risk children turning their necks 90 degrees to try and read the titles, especially any that can be seen as rude or risqué.

Ideally, you want a plain, distraction-free background that allows you and your lesson to take centre stage.

Remember, too, there may be reasons you may have to move throughout the day – maybe as sunlight comes through a window in the afternoon – so have a think about if there is more than one location you can use to avoid having to move mid-lesson.

2. Make sure the camera angle is straight and stable

Make sure your laptop or webcam is stable and pointing straight ahead so you avoid any strange angles that make you look like you are peering up or down.

You also want to avoid the issue of the camera shaking around to avoid distracting your students or making them nauseous.

Don’t be too close to the camera either, as it will not only look a bit unnerving but also you may end up muffling the audio if you are too close to the microphone on your device.

3. Use headphones and a microphone

Ideally, use headphones so you can hear clearly any questions that children ask, while a microphone will ensure your audio is as clean and clear as possible.

This doesn't mean you need pricey kit. Plenty of headphones with built-in microphones are available for around £15 and above. Even a basic pair of iPhone headphones with a built-in microphone will do the job.

If you don't have access to this, it's not the end of the world as most laptops' in-built components are reasonably high-spec, but the dedicated kit will help to bring everything up a notch.

4. Make sure you will not be interrupted

Make sure anyone you live with is aware you may be hosting teaching lessons from home so distractions will not take place.

Anything from a housemate walking past in a dressing gown to a well-meaning partner offering a cup of tea will cause distractions and giggling – and probably continue as a source of teasing for months or years to come.

Ideally, have a room you can lock, or put something outside making it clear you cannot be disturbed.

5. Be aware you are visible at all times

It sounds obvious but a video call is not a phone call. As such, you can’t roll your eyes, yawn or generally look bored; everyone can see you all the time. You’d be surprised how easy it is to forget this, especially if someone else is talking. This may be more of an issue if chatting with colleagues or hearing an SLT briefing given via video conference.

Even if it feels unnatural at first, maintain your natural teacher demeanour while on a video call to help children feel that they are in as normal a learning environment as possible.

6. Resources are ready to be shared when required

If you have resources you want to share with students during a video lesson make sure you know where they are on your desktop, they have clear file names and ideally are already uploaded to the relevant resource hub before you start.

The last thing you want is to be hunting around your downloads folder or browser tabs while students watch on.

7. Make sure your wi-fi connection is good enough

Ideally, make sure your wi-fi connection is up to scratch before you try hosting a video call lesson. Use speedtest.net to see what sort of download and upload speeds you can get.

Once you are up and running with a video lesson, try to make sure no other heavy internet use takes place such as downloading or streaming.

If you do have a poor wi-fi connection, you may struggle to host a call so it’s worth considering if there are other locations you could use. If there are none, this is something you should raise with your school before you are sent home to make them aware of this issue.

Hopefully, though, with the UK average download speed at 54Mbps and upload at 7.2Mbps, the vast majority of teachers – and pupils – will be able to video-conference without issue.

8. Prepare for the unexpected

Video conferencing can cause all manner of weird and wonderful things to happen. A student may fall off their chair, someone’s mum may burst in singing while a child is asking a question, or you may yourself be distracted by someone ringing your front doorbell.

As long as you focus on what you can control, any unexpected moments can generally be ignored or playfully dismissed, allowing learning to continue as best as possible.

What other tools can you use?

There are hundreds of ed-tech resources that offer all manner of teaching benefits. Most teachers will be aware of some of the big hitters, such as Microsoft Teams or Google Classrooms. Indeed, a teacher in Hong Kong, Luis Moreno, has written for Tes about how these tools can be easily used for remote learning.

“For example, Google Meet can be used to check attendance, while Google Classroom lets you upload resources and set deadlines, allows students to turn in work they have done and, importantly, lets you mark it and send back the corrections,” he says.

In fact, both Microsoft and Google have been touting the availability of their teaching tools, including boosting services for educators during the crisis, particularly video conferencing tools.

For example, Google has said its G Suite for Education platform will offer its advanced Hangouts Meet video conferencing tools to all users of the platform for free until 1 July.

This includes the ability to host calls with up to 250 participants, live stream to up to 100,000 viewers, and record meetings and save them for future reference.

Microsoft Teams platform is already free for educational settings, offering video meetings for up to 250 participants and live events for up to 10,000, recording and screen sharing, along with chat and collaboration.

Meanwhile, other platforms, such as BlueJeans, Zoom and LogMeIn, are also available, with the latter offering free access to some of its services to educational institutions for up to three months.

Schools also need to consider purchasing VPN access for staff so they can access school systems securely from any location, while mobile broadband modems – that turn mobile data signal into a wi-fi hotspot to allow teachers to get online – may also be useful to provide a connectivity backup.

Furthermore, specific education-related technologies, such as Class Dojo, Bug Club and Purple Mash, could also prove key to providing simple, web-based access for pupils to obtain learning resources.

The issue again, though, is how ready pupils and teachers are to use these tools confidently, especially if they are turning to them in a time of upheaval, as Baddeley notes,

“Now is not the time to be attempting to learn a whole new complex online learning platform. If your students receive a pack of well-thought-out resources via email, that is much better than both you, them and their parents attempting to muddle through the unfamiliar,” he says.

Benefits and risks of free technology

It is clear that edtech companies see the potential closures that may impact schools in the UK as a chance to showcase what they can do for schools, with the British Educational Suppliers Association (Besa) saying it is working to get more free trial systems added to its website for teachers to use if they wish.

“Given the increasing number of coronavirus cases in the UK, we are working rapidly with Besa’s 400-plus educational suppliers to adapt our existing free educational trials portal LendED.co.uk,” Besa said, adding that it will “incorporate an easy-to-use database of curriculum and remote-access education resources that schools, colleges and parents can access online and in downloadable formats in the event of school closures.”

This may well prove useful, but Lopez says schools should not rush to use it just because it is free now, but instead be mindful of issues it could cause, too.

“As generous as these are, they may not be sustainable, as the company will have their own quarantines to deal with and staffing may not keep up with the free supply of a platform not usually geared up to being free,” she says.

“If you do want to take up one of the offers, check if you need to sync to your management information system etc as the set up alone could prove difficult.”

Be aware not all student may have technology access

It's easy to overlook this but the reality is many students may not have internet access at home, or suitable devices for remote learning.

Data from the Office of National Statistics says 7 per cent of homes have no internet connection. If even a fraction of these households includes children, that is a lot of pupils unable to access remote learning through digital channels.

And what about access to a suitable place to learn? The English Housing Survey revealed last year that more than 300,000 households were squeezed into too few rooms. How do the children in these homes “go to school” at home when they don’t have the devices, connections or space?

This where packs that can be sent home will be crucial – from providing books from libraries to be read, to setting revision on pre-existing topics to strengthen learning to instructions around new topics that need to be understood and how to learn and build this knowledge.

Published for the first time here:
https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-school-closures-guide-tech