In a truly unprecedented manner, which took the whole world by shock, COVID -19 shut down establishments all around the world. A tiny unseen air-borne virus literary brought the world to its knees as people tried to make sense of what was happening around them. The lock-down which was deemed necessary brought forth a range of emotions which included fear, anxiety, stress and in some cases, digital-phobia. Schools which were on the list of establishments to be on complete lock-down left many teachers and students reeling as to what next? With no certainty of re-opening anywhere in the horizon, the newly coined phrase, online learning came into effect. Well just to be clear, online learning is not an alien concept as many learning establishments around the world including Malaysia have used it to some extent. What is different now is online learning must go full force as syllabuses and assessments must go on one way or the other. 

Teachers and teacher educators are transitioning through a particularly uncertain time in terms of their professional lives and work. The rapid move to online modes of delivery in order to keep students engaged in learning has led to significantly intensified workloads as they work to not only move teaching content and materials into the online space, but also to become adept in navigating the required software. Allen, Rowan & Singh (2020), observed that the impact of this shift on both the teaching staff and the students is uneven pointing out that in some contexts, there are already established blended modes of delivery while in others the move to online spaces is considerably difficult as teachers and teacher educators struggle to adapt to what might well be the “new normal” for an indefinite period of time.

In the multitude of studies exploring the perceptions of teachers and teacher educators globally having to make the transition to online teaching in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (Flores & Gago, 2020; Moorhouse, 2020; Zhu & Liu, 2020), a pertinent concern that seemed to have emerged is the need for teachers and teacher educators to take on the responsibility and condition themselves to all the instructional component that comes with online learning. These include instructional methods, the online leaning platform that will be used, the use of instructional time related to the time of application use and well as the psychological and social factors that affect teaching motivation. Being in the field of teacher education, we are expected to be the “front-liners”, the experts’ schools can refer to. In what follows, is my own take based on my own personal technological journey in these rather trying times.

I am a teacher educator at one of the teacher training institutes and like schools we were not spared the predicament as well. While I would consider myself to be rather tech-savvy, there were still many things I had to learn or re-learn. I teach two classes of Drama in English and when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced on the 18^th of March 2020, I still had a total of six weeks to complete. What made it more difficult, was the fact that final six weeks of the course I teach, were mostly based on preparations for staging the play that was studied in the course, Othello, a well-known Shakespearean tragedy. A tragedy indeed as I met my students on the 16^th of March during one of their last practice sessions to break the news that all their hard work right from setting up the committee, to the two-day auditions to the practice sessions that have been on-going since mid-February would come to a screeching halt as we awaited to hear the announcement. I was also saddled with another issue which had to do with the coursework. The big part of the coursework grade was allocated towards the final staging of the play. Now, that aspect of the coursework would have to be amended in accordance to the unfortunate turn of events. 

In retrospect to my whole online teaching experience, I think I will start from the beginning. In an attempt to try out something different with my classes for the year 2020, one of my teaching resolutions was to incorporate an online approach in my classes. I learnt how to use Google Classroom and created a class at the beginning of the academic year. Little did I know how ironic my attempts were when all I wanted initially was to have an online platform with my students for us to share materials and interact on top of the face-to-face classes which still went on. When the MCO was announced, it was not such as difficult transition for both myself and my students. My classes went online from March 18^th onwards with its fair share of challenges and successes or as I would like to call them, lessons learnt.

FOMO or kiasu-ness? The term FOMO was coined by Patrick J. McGinnis and it was popularized in 2004 when it was used in one of Harvard Business Schools’ publications. FOMO refers to the apprehension that one is either not-in-the-know or is out-of-touch with social events, experiences and interactions. According to McGinnis (2004), people who grapple with FOMO may not know exactly what they are missing but can still fear that others are having a much better time or doing something better than they are, without them. My anxiety stemmed from the fear that I was not technologically-savvy enough and I was not doing enough or using more online tools with my students during classes. With the whole world going digital, the number of education-based applications seemed to have mushroomed overnight and I felt in order not to miss out I needed to learn everything and apply them during my online classes. It did not help that most of my younger colleagues were constantly posting their own successes with learning apps that I had to instantly google. I wanted to learn everything so I would not lose out too. On the hindsight, I think it was also a little kiasu-ness that goaded me into learning and trying everything at once. Kiasu is from the Hokkien dialect that translates literally to “kia” which means afraid and “su” which means lose. Learning something new especially if it is technologically-based can be somewhat both intimidating and daunting. Most of my learning were from YOUTUBE channels and while they were really helpful, wanting to master every application or tool out there is not the way to go based on my own personal experience. I learnt the hard way that mastering one or two applications that can be fully utilized in my online classes is so much more feasible and manageable. 

In reflecting on the whole experience, while making the transition from face-to-face to fully online was not so much of a huge obstacle to me, the fear of missing out and also losing was. Trying to keep abreast with current trends, tools and applications so that I could appear to be more tech-savvy and in-the know to both my colleagues and students was perhaps not my proudest moment. To be fair, I am someone who is really interested in learning and discovering new ways and approaches in my teaching. But in the course of my online teaching experience during the MCO, I realized I was doing it for all the wrong reasons and after a while, it gets to a point when it all becomes too overwhelming as we are all clamoring to out-do one another in our rush to embrace technology for fear of missing out. To this, I say to all of you, one application or tool at a time. Learning is, after all a life-long process.

References

Allen, J, Rowan, L & Singh, P. (2020). Teaching and teacher education in the time of COVID-19. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 48(3) 233-236.

Flores, M.A & Gago, M. (2020). Teacher education in times of COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal: national, institutional and pedagogical responses, Journal of Education for Teaching. DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2020.1799709.

McGinnis, Patrick J. 2004. “Social Theory at HBS: McGinnis Two Fos.” The Harbus. http://www. harbus.org/2004/social-theory-at-hbs-2749/.       

Moorhouse, B.L. (2020). Adaptations to a face-to-face initial teacher education course ‘forced’ online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Journal of Education for Teaching, DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2020.1755205.

Zhu, X. and Liu, J (2020). Education in and After Covid-19: Immediate Responses and Long-Term Visions. Post-digital Science and Education © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.

Written by Shubashini Suppiah