Italian universities go digital as coronavirus shuts classrooms
We have chosen the online way to run our teaching activities in order to protect students.
Milan (Web Desk) -- For university students in Milan, the beginning of their second week blocked at home by the coronavirus saw a scramble to adapt digital alternatives to the classroom.
At the Biococca-Milano university, a chemistry professor gives his usual lecture on Monday (March 2), but this time to a classroom full of empty chairs - with only a camera attached to the ceiling as an audience.
He is filming a pre-recorded lesson that his students, stuck at home, can stream online to carry on their studies regardless of the coronavirus crackdown.
Universities and schools in several areas have been closed since the coronavirus outbreak just over a week ago and authorities have had to improvise to keep classes going, taking advantage of existing university digital platforms.
Pre-recorded lectures as part of online degree courses were already an option for Biococca-Milano students, but since the outbreak of the virus, they have been implemented across many subjects.
"In this kind of situation, it is a very useful tool for us and for students to stay in touch and not to lose time," Chemistry professor Luca De Gioia tells Reuters after recording his afternoon class on oxygen and carbon cycles.
The closures in the northern regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna until at least the end of the week but with the number of cases in Italy rising to at least 1,694, there is no certainty that they will be re-opened immediately.
The Bicococca-Milano university has a student population of almost 40,000, so a switch to online teaching has been a necessity.
"We have chosen the online way to run our teaching activities in order to protect students and to avoid that our community, that is almost 40,000 people, are running around in the train or metro," the university s director Giovanna Iannantuoni said.
"This is really needed in order to protect…I want to protect my community, it is a big community so I feel this responsibility greatly," she said.
Many schools, which are also closed, already have websites and email or electronic messaging groups that have allowed teachers and pupils to stay in touch and exchange lessons and homework.
At a high school in Turin, teachers were hopeful they may be able to re-open earlier than those who have to stay closed in neighbouring regions. Cleaners wearing protective masks sanitised every nook and cranny of desks and chairs in classrooms of the Piero Gobetti high school.
