Utilization of distance education during COVID_19 crisis

Abstract

The recent corona crisis situation caused a sudden turnover in the delivery of lessons at all levels of education in the Czech Republic. The well-established face-to-face instruction was unexpectedly replaced by the distance format, generally linked to higher education courses, which are well planned, specially designed, and supported by smart technologies. The main objective of this study is to illustrate this situation from secondary and tertiary school teachers' perspectives. It focuses on the tools of distance education that teachers were able to use after the lockdown from their homes providing only limited technical resources. The study was conducted at Secondary and Tertiary School for medical Staff in Olomouc involving 64 teachers of both general and technical (medical) subjects, who were asked to answer questions regarding technologies and tools used within the distance education. Data obtained from this study revealed that most respondents used predominantly email communication and free online sources.