Abstract:

This conference paper evaluates the pros and cons of the COVID-19 pandemic on computer science education in both Slovakia and Spain, specifically at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics at Comenius University and Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática at University of Castilla-La Mancha where the authors of this work teach on master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Computer Engineering. This work not only focuses on the pandemic lockdown period but extends to the positive and negative consequences that has entailed. Namely, the paper highlights the negative consequences of the transition to online teaching, including the disruption of social bonds, reduced social capital within the educational institution and the decrease in the number of students attending lessons in person after the pandemic. However, it also recognizes the positive outcomes, such as the increased utilization of online courses, the development of automated project checking systems, the facilitation of online dissertation defenses, the flexible learning opportunities, exploring blended or hybrid learning and blending synchronous and asynchronous learning and the increased investment by institutions in technical infrastructure to enable online teaching, digitization of administrative processes and access to documents, resources and libraries. Moreover, a comparative study has also been carried out concerning the knowledge acquired and the grades of the students before, during and after the confinement. This study provides insights into the effects of the pandemic on computer science education and offers valuable lessons for future educational practices.

Keywords:

COVID-19 pandemic.