For many parents, distance schooling is synonymous with videoconferencing lessons, at the usual times.
Error.
This is not the definition given to service providers.
And this is what largely explains the difficulties encountered by many students and teachers to connect to the digital workspaces (ENT) which are dedicated to them.
Read also: Reconfinement: cascading bugs for remote school
Tuesday, the first day of the third confinement, rhyme with panic among parents and teachers.
The main ENTs were no longer responding at all.
The provider Open Direct Education did not anticipate that all students would try to connect at the same time.
"Home
schooling is not the same organization as face-to-face school
," explains Esther Baumard, director of operations at Open digital education.
What does not work is that all the pupils connect at the same time by reproducing a classic class, then generating a connection peak over a short and condensed duration
”.
To the credit of the company, digital services were first designed to extend the school and not to replace it, as is the case this week.
No more than an hour in video
"
These ENTs are designed so that students come to consult resources, look for information, homework to do and return them
", a short connection time, specifies Jean Planet, CEO of Kosmos.
His company has developed the digital workspaces (ENT) of 16 academies, 50 departments and 4 regions (Auvergne, Occitanie, Bourgogne and Grand-est).
In addition to the simultaneous spike in connections, there is the problem of videoconferencing.
“
The principle of platforms is no more than an hour on videoconferencing screens.
It is even a recommendation from National Education
, ”continues Jean Planet.
For these platforms, the observation is clear: videoconferencing should not be a continuous mode of operation, contrary to what many parents expected.
Moreover, only 7 of Kosmos' client communities have activated the videoconferencing option.
"Another way of working"
Despite everything, the services operated by Kosmos held up.
On Tuesday, 97% of the students concerned were able to access the platforms.
The remaining 3% did not sign in or did not have access to services, stuck in a queue system.
Session times have gone from 7-8 minutes to 15-20 minutes on average.
And each person can log in ten, to fifteen times a day.
“Home
schooling is a paradigm shift, another way of working,
” adds Esther Baumard, specifying that videoconferences work nonetheless.
This Wednesday morning, the services were moreover accessible in their great majority, with nevertheless “
some slowdowns
”.
The less fortunate students, however, found themselves stuck in queues, ordered to wait before being able to connect.
And in this case, there is no point in getting annoyed by clicking frantically.
