In-person or online courses?

A decalogue that proves that online teaching has come to stay.
In a rough valuation of the data currently configured, we could highlight the following:

• Strict limits have been set by the authorities as to the number of pupils who may have a simultaneous physical presence in a room.

• The students ‘ desire to reunite with their classmates and interact socially is clear, interpretable and perfectly legitimate.

• It is also logical and self-evident that parents ‘ concern with regard to the risks posed by this interaction during the time of the lesson, the breaks and the use of the massive means that requires the transition from home to the tutorial and vice versa.

• There is no safe time on the horizon as to when the state of alert that we have all been placed in will finally end, together with the consequent dangers of the slightest human interaction.

• It appears extremely likely that sooner or later we may become ill (perhaps with different intensity or with different symptoms) all those who did not choose some form of social detachment, without, also, the risk of being re-infected by the disease has been ruled out with certainty.

• It is true that the number of people who interact multiplies exponentially the risks, but the risks are not eliminated, even if organized, the smallest possible working group, since everyone, even the face to face conversations is a carrier of the load of microbes bequeathed the whole of the previous social interaction with everyone he met (and everyone they had met earlier).

• A student or teacher who will be sick himself or a member of his family, it is wise (if not necessary) to avoid co-ordination with the other members of the Department for 15 days (with what this means to achieve academic goals in view of the Panhellenic examinations mainly).

• Without melodramas or catastrophisms about the possible extent of the impending risks, it is rather visible that no working group, whatever its formation, can during an entire teaching Year receive guarantees or raise the hope that there will be no loss of teaching hours if it is led to live teaching.

• It is logical that every teacher would like to return to his class as soon as possible, because, among other things, this is for him the most simple, natural, habitual and, by extension, the most convenient working condition.

• Every responsible teacher, however, needs to take into account not only the institutional dictates, but also the need to ensure to the maximum extent the health and safety of his students, his associates and their families.

In view of all of the above, we should all realize that online teaching has come into our lives to stay, and therefore the student, parent and teacher who will achieve their goals are the ones who can prove that they have received in time prepared the conditions that this new condition brings into our lives, without clinging to their entrenched certainties.