Online Teaching and Learning under COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities

Technology has been used as a tool to support and improve teaching and learning for decades and Computers in the Schools (CITS) has been publishing the best practice and research findings in this field for over 38 years. Since its inception in 1984, CITS has demonstrated issues and solutions, trends in new technology applications over time, and progress and development of a solid theoretical foundation for integrating technology into classrooms and online teaching and learning, which provided operational guidance to the work of school teachers and researchers alike (CITS, 2021). However, when an education emergency occurs, such as the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, how can technology as a tool be used to achieve the goals of student learning? What challenges are the teachers and students confronted with and what are the possible solutions? According to the report of Global Monitoring of School Closures provided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), up until July 2020, 685,358,072 learners at K-12 levels around the world were affected, and 37 worldwide closures were instigated. By December 2020, the numbers were reduced: 304,525,775 learners at K-12 levels were affected, and 26 worldwide closures were in effect (UNESCO, 2021). Looking at college students in the United States, by March 2020, at least 1,102 colleges and universities in the United States had closed their campuses, and over 14 million college students were impacted (Hess, 2020). During the period of school closures, most literature reported the efforts K-12 schools and universities made on the transition from traditional education to online distance education (Carrillo & Flores, 2020; Crompton et al., 2021; Greenhow & Lewin, 2021) and the challenges and opportunities that educators and students faced (Kaisara & Bwalya, 2021; Moore et al., 2021). The collection of this special issue Technology’s Challenge in K-12 and Higher Education: Dealing with a Worldwide Pandemic presents some distinguished work that has been done by frontline educators during this education https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2021.1989244