Online Learning Cannot Just Be For Those Who Can Afford Its Technology

Every day, hundreds of millions of students, teachers and support staff, are participating in a learning revolution: the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the centuries-old tradition that students travelled to a physical institution to learn. Now, in many places, school and university classrooms are on laptops and smartphone screens, and the Internet has replaced physical books.

It’s been an extraordinary — and extraordinarily fast — transition, affecting everyone from the youngest children entering school right up to young adults in universities. Researchers are starting to study its full impact and its implications — for students, for staff and for the organizations that create and supply educational-technology platforms………………………………………………………………………………