WLP316 What’s Going On: Remote Education, the Unexpected Consequences of WFH and Tool Convergence
In this What’s Going On episode, Maya and Pilar talk about how online education is evolving and what this means for the future workforce, the rise of births linked to remote work, as well as a couple of news around tech and our community. Recorded on 15 November 2022.
Maya’s household has gone completely remote!
With both her daughters studying remotely, she’s getting an insider’s view into what future generations will have experienced before entering the workplace if they study through an online school.
Structure, autonomy, connection… all of this makes it a better experience than the forced home schooling we saw during the lockdown periods.
From a holistic point of view, if children and young people are able to get their formal education online, it might prove less disruptive to those families who out of choice or out of need end up travelling from place to place. It could give consistency to children.
It also means that young people might already be used to formal online work, rather than mainly using the online space for hanging out with their friends. At the moment, young people use technology in a different way to how it’s being used in the workplace and this means that, contrary to popular opinion, they still need to adapt their communication and habits to the workplace. Or maybe it’s too early to tell.
16.00mins
The conversation moves on to the article Is Remote Work Behind the Spike in U.S. Birth Rates? from June 2022, which suggests that the flexibility and wellbeing that remote work can bring is responsible for people deciding to start a family.
The link between access to broadband and fertility was already researched back in 2017, in a German study, so this builds on that data, but shows that, if there is indeed a cause and effect link, a rise in population could be an unexpected result of remote work or working from home.
This could have all sorts of benefits, like less stressed people deciding when they want to start their family, and being able to be in the same location as a partner they met somewhere far away. However, seeing as remote work is often linked to a certain economic status, will this add to the digital divide?
24.50mins
Looks like everyone is becoming a one-stop collaboration space, with Zoom and Canva widening their features to become more like collaboration suites, rather than the specialised spaces they were when they started.
Plus, have you seen what you can do with DAll-E 2? It’s pretty cool, and Maya’s new rabbit-hole activity. Here’s one Pilar prepared earlier by typing “headphones in the style of degas”:
33.12mins
Thanks to listener Scarlett, for her message through the contact form, with a suggestion for a topic (Post-recording note: Guest booked for this already!). And quick shout out to listener and recurring guest Catherine Nicholson for sharing her experience joining an online work meeting through VR.
Sign up to Judy Rees’ course Buzzing online workshops for change-makers which starts 5 Dec, listen out for the discount code. https://maven.com/inoncollab/buzzingonlineworkshops
And Richard MacKinnon has a free and premium community (Community Plus) over at Work Life Psych.
https://www.worklifepsych.club/
Do let us know your opinion on all of this! We’d love to hear from you. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us
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