Emergency learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: experiences and reflections from a virtual community of practice
ISSN: 1074-8121
Article publication date: 8 March 2022
Issue publication date: 16 May 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reflect on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education and draw some tentative assumptions from the information and experiences gathered from participants in this community about their possible impact on the future of education.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a single-case descriptive case study that analyses some indicators of changes in teaching and learning that have taken place to date in the pandemic period as seen from Docentes en línea, a virtual community of practice of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina.
Findings
A number of shortcomings in the educational system, technological infrastructure and teacher formation in many of our members’ countries. Concurrently, rising interest in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education and a new awareness of possible changes.
Research limitations/implications
Part of the data comes from informal sources; therefore, they cannot be completely systematised or quantified. Besides, the results are provisional because the pandemic has not ended.
Originality/value
This analysis was conducted on the basis of first-hand data collected in the activity developed by the members of this virtual community of practice. There is little research on this type of activity at the moment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Prof. Roberto Anibal Arce, a collaborator of the research team, for his contribution to the analysis of the surveys mentioned in this article. Without his dedicated work the authors would not have been able to write this paper. The authors would also like to thank the members of the Extension Office of the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Nacional de La Plata for their permanent support. At the moment when this article was written, the authors had received no sources of external funding. They have received the subsidies given to extension projects and to research projects by UNLP.
Citation
Enriquez, S.C. and Gargiulo, S.B. (2022), "Emergency learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: experiences and reflections from a virtual community of practice", On the Horizon, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 104-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/OTH-09-2021-0111
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited