Commentary
The image of an empty classroom, posted by Jan Slapeta, a professor of veterinary and molecular parasitology at the University of Sydney, is almost surreal. The professor posted the image because he had to lecture to an empty classroom as all his students work from home and remotely connect with him by dialling in.
Sam McPhee, reporting on the image of the deserted lecture theatre notes that, “The work-from-home habits adopted during COVID lockdowns have lingered long after most isolation measures for the virus had been abandoned.”
Some people might argue that there is nothing disconcerting about the image. Remote teaching has been going on for a long time, even prior to the pandemic. This practice usually involves the professor teaching in their allocated lecture theatre, and students have the option to either attend in-person or access the lecture from their home computer—known as “hybrid teaching.”…