Abstract:

COVID19 pandemic caused the school's transition from face-to-face to completely online in Croatia from March 2020, as in many other countries worldwide. However, such a sudden transition did not leave a preparation time for fulfilling all technical prerequisites for conducting distance learning. Therefore, Informatics as a separate and obligatory school subject became an important factor in such transition for teachers and students. Even though Informatics is recognized as an essential discipline in primary education, according to the ACM report, only 22 of 50 educational regions in Europe provide Informatics as a course. In contrast, some regions do not provide Informatics in any form. There are two approaches for implementing Informatics in schools: integration through other school subjects or as a separate school subject. Informatics was an elective and separate school subject in elementary schools and obligatory and separate in at least one high school grade from the early 1990s in Croatia. According to the recent national curricular reform from the school year 2018/2019, Informatics is an obligatory and separate school subject in the fifth and sixth grades in elementary schools and an elective school subject for other elementary school grades (grades from 1st to 4th and 7th to 8th). It is also an obligatory and separate school subject in at least one grade in all high schools, depending on the type of high school. Considering such status of the Informatics school subject, it is possible that transition to online school went easier compared to other countries with no Informatics as a separate school subject. Still, technical prerequisites for completely online teaching are an important factor in teaching quality for all participants. Technical prerequisites for completely online teaching refer to several factors such as a) appropriate device for following online classes, b) Internet connection, c) online learning software. We surveyed 4451 elementary and high school students across the country to investigate the coping in distance learning. The questionnaire was distributed to students by their Informatics teacher during online classes. Students took the survey voluntary and anonymously. We found that approximately 40% of students used tablets or mobile as a primary device for online learning, more than 30% of the students had to share their device for learning, and more than 60% of students did have at least occasionally trouble with the quality of the internet connection during online classes. The most used software for online classes was Microsoft Teams which was available to all students in Croatia. Such technical prerequisites for online learning were satisfactory in Croatia mostly because Informatics is a separate school subject. Furthermore, recent curricular reform in Croatia also contributed to technical conditions. Every school had an internet connection, all teachers had been trained to use tools for online learning, and every fifth and sixth-grader in elementary school got a tablet device. To enable the participation of all students in the following online classes in the circumstances like the COVID19 outbreak, it is necessary to adapt online classes to the technical conditions of students. The findings of the research are in detail presented in this paper.

Keywords:

Distance learning, Informatics, COVID19, school students, technical issues.