This was an interesting article that was originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Calculating the cost of e-learning

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter By: Maggie Macintosh
Posted: 6:17 AM CDT Friday, Apr. 16, 2021

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Manitoba, is photographed in a near empty student study area at the Rady College of Medicine in Winnipeg Thursday, April 15, 2021. He is leading a study on the impacts of remote learning on teacher strategies and the use of Edtech in classrooms.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, assistant professor in the faculty of education at the University of Manitoba, is leading a study on the impacts of remote learning on teacher strategies.

One year after an emergency pivot to remote learning provincewide, a trio of academics at the University of Manitoba wants to find out how teachers have adopted educational technology into classrooms and adjusted their roles in response.

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, Shannon Moore and Joanna Black are seeking teacher recruits for a new research project on online learning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While we recognize there are some benefits for some students, we are worried about how COVID might be used as an opportunity to push for more online learning without substantive research about it,” said Moore, an assistant professor of education and co-investigator on the project.

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The original article was authored by Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, Shannon Moore and Joanna Black and is available at:

Disaster Capitalism, Rampant EdTech Opportunism, and the Advancement of Online Learning in the Era of COVID19

Authors

• Shannon Dawn Maree Moore, University of Manitoba
• Bruno De Oliveira Jayme, University of Manitoba
• Joanna Black, University of Manitoba

Keywords:

COVID19, pandemic, Disaster Capitalism, neoliberalism, online learning, public education, educational technology, pedagogy

Abstract

The authors consider the ways in which educational responses to COVID19 exemplify  opportunistic disaster capitalism. Prior to the pandemic, neoliberal influence increasingly impacted education systems all over the world, pushing for increased privatization in/of schools.  COVID19 has created conditions for private technology companies to push for increased participation in public schools. That is, corporations are using this health crisis to further mobilize the neoliberal agenda, and encourage policies, practices, and technological infrastructure that will be used to rationalize ongoing online learning. In turn, we ask: What are the motivations and implications of inviting private EdTech into public education? How does EdTech encourage a move to online learning; c) what are the overall impacts of online learning? Under the veil of the panic of a global health crisis, our public education systems in Canada are being put at risk.

In looking through the references, it is mainly popular media articles and ideologically-driven think tanks.  While I agree with much of what they have written, it is unfortunate that there isn’t really much literature related to K-12 distance and online learning – given that the focus of the article is K-12 online learning.