The Future of Education

The Hospital School Ledina is a primary school set at the University Children’s Hospital in Ljubljana. Every year it is visited by approximately 3,000 students, who despite their illnesses continue schooling. About 2,500 of them are primary school students, while about 500 visit different secondary schools. The majority of lessons are done with students at the department of child and adolescent psychiatry and at the oncology department. The key learning objectives for ill students are to enable continuity in learning and avoid disruptions of school activities; to strengthen and preserve life perspectives; and to identify strengths and weaknesses in learning. Because the learning process is dependent upon the nature of each student's illness, the hospital school has developed various customized teaching models to work successfully with ill students. One of those is distance learning and the use of VOX web conference, which enables very simple and user-friendly videoconferencing communication. A teacher and (a) student(s) enter an online classroom at the same time and participate in the lesson, exchanging live images and sound, sharing screens, displaying computer desktops, using chat rooms, recording, etc. Due to the changes in treatment of children and adolescents, the time of hospitalization itself is getting shorter, while the time when students need to stay at home after hospital treatment is prolonging. Teachers in hospital school offer to help with distance learning when a home school cannot support a long-term ill student, either because he/she has not received a decision about adjustments in the class yet, the school cannot provide home education, the health situation of the student, or the student’s home is too far from his/her school.

Keywords: Hospital school, long-term ill students, ICT, distance learning, VOX web conference;