IN DEPTH
From virtual learning to virtual working: a preview
Dr Maren Deepwell is the CEO of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), having joined the Association in 2008, she has led the organisation since 2012 including a strategic transition to becoming a virtual team in 2018. Since 2018, she has led the organisation as a fully distributed, virtual team and is currently writing an Open Access coaching book on leading virtual teams – here she shares an extract ahead of its release in spring 2022.
IN 2020 many countries around the world moved learning online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic (
https://bit.ly/30PRoF9).
In the UK, most schools, colleges and university campuses closed from March 2020 until the end of the summer term. The ‘great pivot online’ enabled students to continue their learning during months of lockdown and the only gradual return to in person teaching.
At the same time as learning moved online, so did the workplace for an increas- ing proportion of the population. In the UK, the average percentage of adults working from home increased from 27 per cent to 37 per cent, (
https://bit.ly/3CStI0x) and estimates suggest that globally up to 88 per cent of organisations “encouraged or required employees to work from home” (https://gtnr. it/32icX1T), from March 2020.
A year on, the UK Business Insights and Conditions Survey (
https://bit.ly/3CA05kk, April 2021) showed that in education 48 per cent of employees continue to work from home, the fourth largest percentage behind Real Estate Activities (57 per cent), Professional Scientific and Technical Activities (71 per cent) and Information and Communication (81 per cent). According to the Office for National Statistics, 24 per cent of businesses
16 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL
Dr Maren Deepwell (@marendeepwell), CEO of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), independent charity and the leading professional body for Learning Technology in the UK (
www.alt.ac.uk).
overall intend to use increased homework- ing as a permanent business model going forward, and in education this rises to 37.6 per cent (
https://bit.ly/3oJCGbe). Reporting from the survey, the ONS further states: “Both businesses and individuals preferred a ‘hybrid’ working approach (a mixture of both office and homeworking) in the future. However,
December 2021
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