The first question is why do we even need to consider flexible time for online learning when in school students have regular school hours.

Well, for starters, many children do not have their own personal device. This means they must share devices with other siblings or even with their parents or other family members. Additionally, in a large number of cases, students do not get access to these devices until the parent has returned home from work.

Another situation occurs when some children can only get access to online work when they have access to data. At Hopalong we work closely with parents who are eager to help their children with online learning. We recently discovered that for some this is the reality: parents use WiFi at their jobs for the majority of the day and, therefore, only purchase data during the weekend. The result? Weekends ended up being the only time our Trainers were able to communicate with these students. If we had rigidly stuck to the traditional school hours this handful of students would never have gotten any online learning done. I mean the question needs to be asked… who came up with the rigid timetable for school anyway?

If education is to be for the benefit of ALL children, then we as educators must be prepared to allow for flexible online learning times. The concern, however, is that teachers also have their own private lives away from school. So how can a teacher accommodate all learners while at the same time keeping his or her sanity? It is possible, and we will let you know how in a future article.