2020-03-23 Bloomberg Businessweek

B U S I N E S S

12

● Asthecoronavirusshutters

campuses,schoolsscramble

toprovidedistanceeducation

ReadyorNot,CollegesGoOnline

Edited by

James E. Ellis

BloombergBusinessweek March 23, 2020

Analisa Packham, an economist who studies health

and education, would seem ideally suited for

teaching in the age of Covid-19. Yet last weekend

the 30-year-old assistant professor at Vanderbilt

University in Nashville realized she had a lot to

learn—about technology.

Packham taught herself two popular software

programs for videoconferencing, Zoom and Kaltura.

She plans to hold office hours via Skype and pro-

duce TikTok videos to explain the importance of

food stamps in the current economic crisis. She’s

already recorded a video lecture for her 41 students,

but is far from satisfied with it. “If I was a student, I

would not want to watch this,” she says.

America has 1.5 million faculty members, and,

like Packham, 70% have never taught a virtual

course before, according to education technol-

ogy researcher Bay View Analytics. To promote

social distancing during the pandemic, universi-

ties are sending students home en masse to learn