> predicting that most education will be online after everyone spent a year and a half discovering how terrible both Zoom school and Zoom university are is a bo

> predicting that most education will be online after everyone spent a year and a half discovering how terrible both Zoom school and Zoom university are is a bold (and likely wrong) prediction. You’re probably right about Zoom school—it has sounded pretty terrible to me, too, especially for younger children—but I think the jury is still out on Zoom university. I teach at a university in Japan where most of the teaching has been conducted online since April of last year, and we’re now debating what to do next year if infections stay low. (After a frightening spike in August, they are very low in Japan now.) When faculty in my department were asked their teaching preference for the next academic year, about a third said they want to return to in-person only, a third want to teach a combination of in-person and online, and a third—including me—want to keep teaching online only. When I’ve discussed the issue with undergraduates in my classes this year, about half have said they prefer to stay online for many or most of their classes. However, they do strongly prefer to socialize with other students in person. The reasons many teachers and students prefer online classes range from the mundane—such as avoiding long commutes on crowded trains—to the perception that, for some types of classes, online learning can actually be more effective than classroom teaching. For me, the game-changer for online classes has been the ability of students to take part in classes regardless of where they are. Most international students have been unable to enter Japan since April 2020, but, at my university at least, they have been able to continue their studies online. After I taught a graduate seminar last year in which more than half the students were in other countries—Indonesia, Thailand, China—and all were able to participate in the discussions on an equal basis, I came to think that it will be hard for in-person-only universities to remain competitive in the future.