Re: [tlug] Corona and schools in Japan

[Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@example.com>]

> On Apr 29, 2020, at 10:02, Christian Horn <chorn@example.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 07:19:41PM +0900, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
>> 
>> 3 universities I know: Takamatsu University / Kagawa University / Shikoku Gakuin seem to be totally unprepared for online teaching. I was actually surprised to see that the engineering department of Kagawa University was the last to react and the least prepared.
>> 
>> I have an older son who is a Science teacher at a local public they have nothing to handle the situation and teachers are now at home and are limited to give 2 week batches of homework to their students.
>> 
>> I also have a son in HS and a daughter in JHS. Both are at home, are expert at using Line and other tools but school has nothing for them and they just do the homework they've been handed the other day.
> 
> Sounds as bad as feared..

Although there is some infrastructure work going on. I see huge screens in classrooms, I see that some content is provided by companies already (English classes for primary schools, I saw that last year, prerecorded "interactive" crap, the teacher was just following the class and giving instructions to the kids).

So I would not be surprised if at one point something moves in the online direction but considering that compulsory education is supposed to be "free" I don't see such a move happening without the state funding tablets for all the students including all the software stack.

I guess the market there is limited to huge corps like Benesse, etc. that's already very well implanted in the public education business.

The other part of the online education market is obvious, as discussed here, small/medium businesses, private teachers, etc. Harder to reach, but easier to convince.

>> As far as needs are concerned, small business owners (typically small juku, teachers who do mostly private lessons) are in dire need of solutions, not too expensive and not too hard to use. I'm also thinking of private music teachers for ex.
>> 
>> Big organizations also have such needs but I guess they'd be more willing to pay for proprietary services.
> 
> Agreed, companies can pay, and it would not be surprising if
> companies specilized on such counseling appear.  But waiting
> for such to appear for schools, and then see taxpayers money
> spent on that, and ontop (potentially, likely) proprietary
> software getting deployed instead of opensource..

See above.

> Good to see also others see potantial for improvement there
> and are willing to contribute.  Just how to approach best..

Indeed.


Jean-Christophe Helary
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http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune