Summer has flown by and pupils and students have returned to school. In connection with the return to schools in the application Rakuten Viber there was a very interesting poll in which approximately 185 people participated. This survey, which took place in 000 countries around the world, including the Czech Republic, showed that users use the application together with the main tools for online education to ensure communication. Overall, more than 24% of users confirmed that they will use Viber to communicate with parents, teachers and students in the new school year.
Several months have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and schools around the world are now considering how to start the new school year. In some countries, students will return to classrooms and follow the rules for social contact, in others it will be a combination of school attendance and distance learning, and somewhere online teaching will continue, which has become a relatively popular form.
The absolute majority of participants from the Czech Republic, i.e. 86% of users who expressed their opinion in the survey in to the official Viber Czech Republic community, agrees to start the school year with regular face-to-face teaching in classrooms. Among teachers who answered the same question in the community Viber guide for teachers, it was even 90%.
However learning begins, it is clear that new ways of teaching and a way to ensure that pupils and students have access to study materials will be needed. Viber can serve as a useful communication tool for students and teachers, whether the teaching takes place in classrooms or at home.
Out of the total number of participants, an average of 22% of participants answered that they use Viber as their main tool for education on their computer and mobile or tablet. In Hungary and Ukraine it was even almost 27% and 24%. Overall, users from Western European countries such as Germany, France or Great Britain, Central and Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East and North Africa participated in the survey.
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An interesting finding was that most of the participants answered that in the new school year they will not only use Viber to communicate with teachers and students, but also with other parents. Thanks to its features, which include a wide range of services from video calls to group calls and polls and securing communication with encryption, Viber is an effective supplement to education, whether it takes place online or offline.
“A year ago, 100% online learning seemed like something from the distant future. However, due to the COVID pandemic, it became a reality within a few weeks. As a parent myself, I use Viber to communicate with my children because it's the most secure way to communicate and because I don't want different companies collecting information about them informace. But in the last few months, I have seen Viber being used by many parents, teachers and students to communicate in order to continue the educational process. We are very pleased that Viber can offer flexibility and security to teachers, students and parents," said Djamel Agaoua, CEO of Rakuten Viber.
To help teachers continue teaching, Rakuten Viber has opened special communities in many European countries where teachers can learn about the features that the application offers for use in education. In the Czech Republic, it is the Viber community guide for teachers.
In the near future, Rakuten Viber will also introduce new features such as quiz mode in polls, comments in "My Notes" and gallery improvements. At the end of the previous school year, Viber was used as a teaching tool all over the world. According to internal research conducted by Rakuten Viber in eight CEE countries at the end of the school year, 65% of teachers reported that they used Viber as a tool to help them communicate with students on various topics related to teaching.
