Abstract
Online learning is a method of teaching and learning that takes place through the internet as a form of distance learning. Online learning is not a new phenomenon, however it became ubiquitous as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. The closure of schools in most countries created new circumstances for almost the entire educational system. In the pre-school education domain, kindergarten teachers were summoned to manage new knowledge and overcome difficulties in order to continue the educational process by implementing distance online and offline teaching methods. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feelings and perceptions of preschool children who took part in these online learning practices. The literature review concluded that this subject has not been sufficiently researched. To fill in this gap this small-scale research was conducted on a semi-urban island region of Greece during the suspension of kindergartens in November and December 2020. The data collected derived from interviews and drawings, of 11 children-participants, which were subsequently analyzed in a qualitative study. The study demonstrates how the preschoolers experienced the online courses. According to the results, the children’s perceptions of the online lessons were assessed as positive. Although their desire to return to school and face-to-face learning was evident, online learning offered them enjoyable learning experiences. The research, also, reveals the important factors according to educational neuroscience that need to be considered in order to promote effective online lessons for this particular age group.
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Acknowledgments
This research is funded by the European Union and Greece (Partnership Agreement for the Development Framework 2014–2020) under the Regional Operational Pro-gramme Ionian Islands 2014–2020, project title: “Enhancing cognitive abilities of people with Mild Cognitive Impairment through measurable cognitive training—NEUROEDUCATION”, project number: 5016113.
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Vlachou, S., Doukakis, S., Malliou, E., Filippakopoulou, E. (2022). Exploring Pre-schoolers’ Feelings During Online Learning with Elements of Educational Neuroscience. In: Auer, M.E., Tsiatsos, T. (eds) New Realities, Mobile Systems and Applications. IMCL 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 411. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96296-8_6
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