Hybrid or Virtual?

There have been several posts and discussions on this topic. Is it Hybrid or Virtual or on-site ? In the recent past , Elon Musk also contributed to this by making an announcement asking all his employees to come back to office. I wanted to share my experience with it here also try to address myths, misconceptions. I run a tech academy, Siliconvalley4u, where we train students of all ages to apply their educational skills to create real-world use cases using technology as a tool. Students (parents in some cases) come up to us asking if we can run the class on-site, I have been trying to help them to understand the importance of learning using virtual classes and get past mental blocks and myths about on-site classes . Since pandemic , this confusion went up significantly more so I decided to write a blog with my thoughts and remedies.

Here is what I tell youth and their parents :

1. Youth MUST develop aptitude towards learning online, (not talking about on demand videos), instructor led courses. Because once they exit academics and starts career in the real-world they have to deal with virtual sessions from DAY-1
2. You have to widen the "small world" you see everyday by connecting with people from the other parts of the globe to realize things that happen outside classrooms. That's possible only through virtual sessions
3. Learn from the best talent where ever they are . That comes only with virtual sessions
4. With coding classes there's nothing to gain by sitting in class room with few people, you are better off interacting with global community to improve the exposure
5. With project development classes, you MUST be online to do research and work in a team to build products. That helps you develop multicultural teamwork skills.
6. With exposure of online global community, opportunities to contribute and be creative which makes significant difference early on youth academic / real-world career.
7. Last but not least, logistically very simple, you do not need to be in traffic. Even if you are traveling , joining the virtual classroom is one click away

All this effort is to alleviate the gap between academics and real-world to make sure youth gets enough exposure for prime time once they are done with studies. IMHO, everyone, especially youth, should make it a point to learn and collaborate through virtual sessions to enjoy global classrooms and communities. Also, the gap between Hybrid and Virtual will be further reduced by innovations from Zoom, Cisco webex and MSFT teams. So be prepared for the change before it happens .

Siliconvalley4u (www.siliconvalley4u.com) is a tech academy to help youth to connect to the real world. Products developed by youth www.swatcloud.com