Abiding by the recommendations issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), to maintain social distancing and quarantine, the government of Costa Rica as a measure for students to continue their studies has implemented the modality of virtual classes based on the use of digital platforms.
Catalina Cortés, director of Virtual Education at Cenfotec University stated, “With virtual classrooms, there is always space to publish all kinds of material, not only presentations but also the recordings, books, relevant consultation links, among others. The answers to the exercises can be made available to the student once sufficient time has been given for them to be solved”.
For his part, Pablo Guzmán, rector of the University of Medical Sciences (UCIMED) pointed out “We took this measure to suspend face-to-face classes as a precautionary measure in the face of the increase in cases of this Virus in the national territory, to avoid a spread in our university”. It should be mentioned. Taking into account that students still must comply with schedules, homework assignments, and projects through digital platforms.
Expanding bandwidth for virtual classes
The University of Costa Rica (UCR) chose to duplicate all the Internet links in its precincts and sites to meet the need to virtualize the courses, with the aim that their students and teachers had access to all the virtual courses.
Alonso Castro, director of the UCR Computing Center commented: “The main Internet links went from 1 Gigabyte (GB) to 2 GB per second and the links of the regional headquarters went from 100 Megabytes (MB) to 200 MB per second. That gives us enough capacity to meet demand.” Another fact that was highlighted is that more than 29,000 students from this higher education center have enrolled in virtual courses.
A positive aspect of this crisis due to the COVID-19 Pandemic is that it provides the opportunity to streamline remote learning methodologies and delve into those changes that the world is embracing through the fourth industrial revolution.
Get to know 4 benefits of studying online
1. Time flexibility: Online classes are not structured in a rigid hourly load, so you can view the content at any time, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week.
2. Aid to the environment: Not having to move from one place to another does not contaminate the environment.
3. Saving on academic material: By studying online, you can have all the material you will use digitally to reduce expenses related to printed study materials.
4. Hand in hand with technology: with virtual classes, you will be able to find discussion forums, online bookstores and texts, videos, calendars, and other resources that help improve your learning experience by making it more effective.
