Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that, while bad things can happen, it is important to remain positive and see the glass half full rather than half empty. Thus, with the help of the technological innovation, we have learnt to stay connected online and accept that we have to adapt and deal with the challenges faced because of the pandemic. The online environment has become ‘our everything’, our vital space, one without which work, communication, teaching, survival itself would not have been possible. Consequently, from the negative image projected by COVID-19 that started with social distancing we embraced a more positive perspective brought by the pandemic itself, due to the economic redirection and the changes made by whole societies fighting with or against the tide, from one extreme to another. Having all these in mind, the aim of this article is to prove that, even in such harsh times, online classroom management can still be effective in the digital era (just) as it is face- to-face.
Our research intends to investigate Romanian students’ metaphorical representations of the online learning during the pandemic of COVID-19. The main focus has been to analyse the way students perceive the process of education online together with the type of interaction ‘behind the desk’, and to reveal the advantages brought by online teaching, as well as the disadvantages brought by the impossibility of creating a ‘face-to-face’ connection. |
