COLUMBIA, S.C. — Students get hands-on, real-world training at technical colleges. Now with COVID-19, these schools have to find new, creative ways to offer the same close-up learning experience.
Dr. Barrie Kirk, the provost at Midlands Technical College, says technology is helping them do that.
“We are using something called ‘point-of-view glasses’ so an instructor can do an experiment in a lab and inside their glasses there’s a little camera so the students can see exactly what a faculty member is doing and feel like they’re doing it themselves.”
She says they’re offering online, in person and hybrid courses. They also have classes that are taught in person and over zoom at the same time.
“We have gone through every classroom and every lab and measured 6 foot distances between the instructor’s table and desks,” Kirk says, “we have hand sanitizing stations, increased schedules for disinfecting all spaces, we have put a plexiglass shield in front of the teacher station in every classroom.”
Orangeburg Calhoun Technical College has also invested in more technology to prepare for the fall.
School president, Dr. Walt Tobin says,
“we were able to purchase Zoom licenses for all our faculty. We had to buy additional laptops. We’ve increased the bandwidth of our WiFi access. Our students who were enrolled for the summer and registered for the fall semester, we were able to get them a hot spot, which gets them unlimited internet coverage for the year.”
Many courses will be online or over Zoom at OC Tech as well. But President Dr. Tobin says some things still need to be in person.
“You can’t weld virtually. You really have to be on the ground and in the lab. In cases like that, the students would do the lecture portion online and then they would come on campus to the welding lab. That’s 50% capacity. We want to maintain social distancing.”
Tobin says students will wipe down equipment before and after their labs.
Central Carolina Technical College in Sumter has a very similar plan to both Midlands Tech and OC Tech. In a statement online they say,
“Following CDC guidelines, the college has implemented many measures to prevent the spread of germs: floor markings are in place to help keep social distancing, clear safety guards have been added to service counters, mandatory face coverings on all campuses and frequent cleaning of high traffic areas.”
Midlands Tech and OC Tech are also requiring face coverings on campus when social distancing isn’t possible. To learn more about South Carolina technical colleges, click here.