I think COVID-19 changes our education into “seeking education”. I mean even now when we live through threat of COVID-19, we continue to seek better online education. Last year, most of my teachers gave us assignment or exam through UNIPA. This year, however, some teachers use COLLAVOD or Google form for the exam, and they seem to make a big effort to prevent students’ injustice. As you know, the reason why teachers introduce new system to their education is growing technology or that many teachers notice the “new” functions of these kinds of LMS.
In addition, I also feel that it is hard get opportunities to communicate with others in online classes, and it is not communication, it is “interaction”. In online classes, it sometimes happens that more than two people say something at the same time, and others can’t catch any voice and they are confused about that. Then, the atmosphere is frozen, and either one yield his/her turn and other one start talking again… the number of saying “I’m sorry, it’s your turn. Please go ahead.” is increasing from when online classes started, and I feel difficulty speaking as usual (before COVID-19). And I’m so afraid of frozen atmosphere that I have to keep talking or care more about who start talking. In short, I have many experiences that I have to be attentive to talking. So, I realized that “real / face-to-face” communication is important for our lives and education.
I think online discussions are much harder to manage than in-person discussions. But I guess I don’t use them as much in my classes as you might hope, because I don’t like the amount of down time they cause. Humans are much better at in-person than online for discussions.
UNIPA is very hard to use in my opinion and very limited. I used Google Forms in 2014, but I also found it had problems and limitations that caused me to develop my own tools.
I can understand your idea because I also experienced such idea many times like you. I hope we can get opportunity for real communication.