What we learned from using distance learning during the covid-19 corona pandemic in the university. Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan http://atrc.net.pk

1. Distance learning during the
pandemic. What works.
By : Khawar Nehal
19 June 2020
http://atrc.net.pk
Updated 23 June 2020

2. Coincidence
Three things which came together coincidentally.
I had been researching distance learning for more
than 10 years but not so actively using it.
Covid/Corona pandemic occurred. In phases.
I was teaching a regular physical class during this
time.

3. Before the pandemic
I wanted to improve the understanding of the
students. So I made many assignments and also
added a lot of useful videos for each subtopic.
Result : 14 out of 87 students were able to
complete the course.
Based on the research so far, it is usually 20%.
But this 14/87 = 16% case was for real in Karachi.

4. Technology Familiarity
Since we have experience in developing telecoms
and internet infrastructure we have an idea which
methods are reliable.
The most reliable methods were selected to avoid
excuses from the students of ANY kind.
And yes, most of our University students do look
for some excuse to give like school students.

5. Technology Selected
The technologies used which were available these
days included :
Pen, Notepad, Charged mobile and turned off until
needed and loaded with internet access credits,
and a battery powered light.

6. Assignment Procedure
The Assignments were created and added to a
document file which was exported to PDF and
uploaded via FTP to a website. The website used
was my company website, but any website under
the management of the teacher shall suffice.
There was a directory on the website for all
documents related to the course.
A deadline for each assignment was provided.

7. Assignment Submission
All assignments are submitted via email.
The time stamp on the email is used as the
submission date and time.

8. Course material
The syllabus was analyzed and it was made sure
that resources for each subtopic were available on
the internet in the form of tutorials and or videos.
For topics which were new or the material was not
on the internet, then videos or docs were placed
into the course directory.

9. Quizzes and Final Exams
Quizzes and Final exam dates are informed at
least a week or two earlier.
The quiz or exam is uploaded at the starting time.
The submission is via email and has to be done
withing the time for the exam.
The quizzes were provided a time slot of 2 hours
and the final a time of 4 hours.

10. Submission format
All assignments, quizzes and exams are
submitted by writing by hand and then taking
pictures or scanning and emailing the images.

11. Update
The university administration decided after about
4 months since the pandemic started what to do
about the semester.
From Jan to May, 14% of the students were able
to complete the course without any additional
training need or physical classes or attendance.
In June the new updates were available.

12. Additional technologies
Since online classes had been officially approved,
I decided to start them.
However, knowing that many shall not be able to
manage the connections for various reasons so I
added whatsApp as the main communication
method.
A group which was created a month earlier was
used to ask which topics needed to be covered in
the online classes.

13. Additional technologies
After a lot of noise and offtopic discussions, two
topics came to light. I decided to offer these two
as the first two classes.
During the first class, whatsapp, jitsi, zoom,
youtube live were tested.
All of the students seem to prefer zoom and for
video conferencing it was apparently way better in
performance than jitsi.

14. Additional technologies
Youtube live was able to deliver a chat channel
and a one way stream with audible audio.
However, the audio was delayed by 5 to 10
seconds. Which can be bearable. However many
students started complaining of buffering. The
reason for this is currently unknown and shall be
researched later.

15. Controlled end to end
The only technology which we have total control
of from end to end with the server also is jitsi.
We are planning to optimize this technology and
tune it to a level which works.
Inshallah we shall be able to scale it to thousands
practically as the experience in implementation is
gained and work on it continues.

16. Learning Management Systems
Multiple learning management systems are under
evaluation. We shall update this presentation as
we get into more details of how these
technologies perform in the real world
implementations.

17. Thank you
Thank you for your time.
If you would like to provide feedback, please
contact on
WhatsApp : + 92 343 270 2932
Email “ khawar@atrc.net.pk
Web : http://atrc.net.pk