




































American International Journal of Education and Linguistics Research 

Vol. 4, No. 1; 2021 

ISSN 2641-7987   E-ISSN 2641-7995 

Published by American Center of Science and Education, USA 

 

39 

 

IMPACT OF E-LEARNING IN EDUCATION SECTOR: 

CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF COLLABORATION IN 

REMOTE LEARNING 

  
Md Rezuan Chowdhury 

 IB PYP Educator 

 Abdul Kadir Molla International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

E-mail: rez.akmis2020@gmail.com  

 

Syeda Aliza Salik 

 IB PYP Educator 

 Abdul Kadir Molla International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

E-mail: syedaaliza.salik@gmail.com  

 

Jannatul Ferdous 

 IB PYP Educator 

 Abdul Kadir Molla International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

E-mail: jannatkenny@gmail.com 

 

ABSTRACT 

The education sector has been through a lot of changes over time. Specially the last few months 

have caused a lot of reshaping in the education sector of Bangladesh because of the sudden 

flare-up of Covid 19. The highly inoculable characteristics of this deadly pandemic have caused 

educational institutions throughout the world to follow a work-from-home policy and espouse e-

learning. Exploring more about e-learning has become a new norm nowadays. This paper aims 

to analyze the impact of e-learning in the education sector and the role of collaboration in 

enriching e-learning. This study analyzes the challenges and prospects of collaboration in 

remote learning. Empirical data was gathered from teachers and collaborators from different 

educational institutions throughout the world. Data is collected from a web survey by using a 

structured questionnaire. Based on the findings the researchers have suggested some 

recommendations for better collaboration to make e-learning more interactive, successful, and 

embellished. The study outcome would add value to the current teaching practices and enable 

teachers and collaborators to make collaboration more effective. 

 

Keywords: E-learning, Management, Collaboration, Enhance. 

 

INTRODUCTION 

With the course of time the education sector has witnessed a lot of change like many other 

sectors. The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 2020 has triggered the most significant change in the 

history of education. This pandemic has caused closure in the educational institutions. UNESCO 

believes that over one and a half billion school and college learners are now stuck at home, 

mailto:rez.akmis2020@gmail.com


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representing roughly 90% of the world‟s student population at one point in March 2020 

according to Times of India. In this situation educational institutions are choosing the virtual 

platforms to continue their academic activities. Many of the virtual learning platforms are being 

available to the learners and contributing in the whole learning process. In the changed scenario 

el learning has become the new norm. This paper aims to look at the history of e learning, 

present the current scenario of e learning in different countries of the world and discuss the 

importance of collaboration in e learning.  

 

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 

The major objectives of this study are as follows:  

 To identify and discuss the importance of collaboration in e-learning during this 

pandemic period. 

 To study the challenges and prospects of collaboration 

 To recommend some solutions for better collaboration in remote learning.  

 

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 

This paper is based on primary and secondary data. Primary data is obtained through teachers, 

management, students and parents from different educational institutions. The source of 

secondary data includes journals, articles, blogs, newspapers and different publications from 

websites. A quantitative method is used in this study which includes conducting surveys and 

collecting information through various IT tools such as Padlet and Mindminister.  

 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

Collaboration 

Collaboration is one of the most vital factors in teaching and learning. It is the key to make the 

learning more interactive for the learners. According to wikipedia “Collaboration is the process 

of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a 

goal”. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines collaboration as “to work jointly with others or 

together especially in an intellectual endeavor”. Creating a collaborative atmosphere may lead to 

an increase in the learner's beneficial impact. With the strike of deadly Covid-19 pandemic, like 

the other important sectors, the education sector also underwent a significant change and 

collaboration in and outside the institutions also adopted a virtual outlook. With the educational 

institutions being closed as a means of maintaining social distance learning shifted in the virtual 

classrooms from the brick and mortar classes and collaboration began to take place through the 

electronic devices. Most institutions now conduct their regular meetings, preparing the next 

courses of action virtually and the word collaboration itself has been replaced with e 

collaboration. In these changed circumstances to have a look at the current e collaboration 

practices we have conducted a survey where 68 participants from 14 countries including 

teachers, students, coordinators, principal, Head of schools have shared their thoughts and 

described the current e collaboration scenario in their institutions. According to „On 

Collaboration‟ book “Social media and technologies have put connectivity on steroids and made 

collaboration more essential to business than ever. But without the right leadership, collaboration 

can go astray. Employees who try to collaborate on everything may wind up jammed in endless 

meetings, struggling to reach agreement.  A growing number of organizations – including IBM, 

Citibank, and NASA are reaping the rewards of collaborative communities in the form of higher 

margins on knowledge intensive work‟.  



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E-Collaboration 

According to IGI Global dictionary e-collaboration is defined as “collaboration, which is 

conducted without face-to-face interaction among individuals or members of virtual teams 

engaged in common task using information and communication technologies.” The participants 

of the survey have defined e collaboration as “E-collaboration denotes connecting students from 

all strata of life specially from the rural and remote area, through the internet”, “Working with 

others via Zoom, using google documents, etc.”, “E-collaboration is basically a virtual meeting 

between two or more parties in the academic arena; it could be either with academic colleagues 

or with students when they meet virtually and work toward agreed goals”. 

 

Examples of E-Collaboration and Current E-Collaboration Scenario across the World 

Schools, colleges and universities throughout the world now are continuing their academic 

activities online. Conducting classes, regular meetings, preparing planners and resources are 

being performed virtually which is enabling people collaborating from different corners of the 

world without travelling. One of the important examples of e collaboration is the commencement 

of a global IB classroom by Lahore grammar School where they invite educators from around 

the world to conduct sessions and share their ideas with the learners of different grades. During 

the pandemic period educators from Germany, India and Bangladesh have joined the global IB 

classroom and collaborated successfully by conducting virtual sessions as guest speakers.  

Virtual art competition may be taken as another example of collaboration where 

participants have the opportunity to share and present their work. This type of collaboration is 

one of the dominant factors in enriching the learners' knowledge. Recently in Bangladesh, Dabur 

Bangladesh in collaboration with The Daily Star, one of the leading newspapers of Bangladesh 

organized a virtual art competition for kids where children from 25 schools aged between 4 to 13 

participated. This was an excellent initiative taken by Dabur Bangladesh and The Daily Star to 

promote collaboration and engage children in creative activities and utilize the “Stay at home” 

time of the pandemic period.  

The World Bank is also collaborating with the education ministries of dozens of countries 

to provide technological support to ensure remote learning opportunities for students. They are 

working in Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, 

Chile, China, Fiji. India, France etc. They are offering their support in utilizing the educational 

technologies.   

Association of IB World Schools (AIBWS) is an indispensable part of collaborating 

among the IB World schools throughout the world. AIBWS are groups established by 

International Baccalaureate practitioners aiming to support the IB schools. AIBWS conduct their 

regular meetings, organizes professional development and shares best practices among the 

members. AIBWS have recognized association of IB schools in Africa, Europe, Middle East, 

America and Asia Pacific. These associations work on ATL skills, students‟ work, assessment, 

behavioral issues and well- being of the students. All the schools under the associations get the 

opportunity to exchange their views and collaborate with each other towards one common goal 

which is the wellbeing of the learner.  

Another example of e collaboration is IB matters which is an online podcast focusing on 

all four programs of IB curriculum- PYP, MYP, CP and DP. These podcasts are for the teachers, 

learners and anyone interested in IB curriculum. IB Matters discusses various issues related to IB 

curriculum and provides guidelines for IB learners, teachers and parents.  



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4 Generations 4 Education is an independent international educational organization 

established by Ali Ezzeddine, academic advisor, SEK International School, Qatar. The mission 

of this organization is to ensure sustainable growth of schools by offering educational 

consultancy services to all types of schools in Arabic, English and French. 4 Generations 4 

Education is arranging free webinars, training sessions for teachers, students and parents who are 

following IB curriculum.  

Virtual round table dialogues are also serving the purpose of e collaboration during the 

pandemic period. This is a tool where learners across the world can meet and share their ideas 

virtually. Recently grade 2 learners of Abdul Kadir Molla International School, Bangladesh 

arranged a round table dialogue where learners from Japan, Thailand and India joined. They 

were exchanging their ideas about the language, culture, tradition of their own countries. They 

also discussed the safety measures they are following in their own countries to combat the 

pandemic. This type of arrangement contributes a lot in collaborating among the learners from 

different countries.  

 

E-Collaboration in Bangladesh 

The education ministry of Bangladesh is collaborating with schools, colleges, and universities 

and giving necessary guidelines to the institutions to continue the academic activities during the 

pandemic time. To keep the learning ongoing for the kids social media is also contributing a lot. 

A facebook page is formed for the teachers named English Medium School Association 

Bangladesh (EMSAB). This group is inviting teachers from different schools of Bangladesh 

where teachers are sharing and interchanging their ideas and opinions on various issues in live 

telecasts. This group is contributing a lot in e collaboration in the pandemic time.  

There are other institutions contributing in the education sector during the pandemic 

period. UK Bangladesh Education Trust (UKBET) is organizing webinars and training sessions 

for teachers. These training sessions are enabling the teachers to make the virtual classes more 

engaging, interactive for the learners with the use of various online tools and strategies.  

 

Online Collaboration Tools 

As the teaching and learning process shifted into a complete virtual process in 2020 due to 

Covid-19, some online collaboration tools started to be used more for smooth, smart and fast 

communication between teams and educational institutions. Some of these are  

 

Google Docs 

This user friendly tool allows several participants to work on the same document at the same 

time. Participants can edit, write comments, take notes and collaborate at the same time. It does 

not require any pre-installation.  

 

Google Slides 

Google slides include advanced presentation tools with great collaboration features and support 

presentations created in other suites such as power point or Open office. The objective is to 

enable users to share and collaborate on presentations in real time.  

 

Padlet 

A free online bulletin board allows entrepreneurs, teachers, students to collaborate, reflect and 

share links safely. It has a user friendly digital wall which lets the users post their contents. 



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It is easy to use, links can be attached and can take photos.  

 

Wakelet 

Wakelet is another free interactive collaboration tool being used widely nowadays. Users can 

upload videos, images, articles and collaborate at the same time. 

  

INVOLVING LEARNERS AND PARENTS IN THE COLLABORATION 

To make the virtual lessons more interactive, learners and parents also contribute a lot to the 

entire collaboration process.  Parents are being invited as guest speakers and learners are taking 

their interviews. Reporting to the parents through the Teacher Parents Meeting, Student Led 

Conference are some examples where parents are being informed about the child‟s academic 

progress and contributing to the collaboration process.  

To have a close look at the e collaboration scenario throughout the world, we have 

conducted a survey where 68 participants from 14 countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, 

India, KSA, Lebanon, Iraq, Vietnam, Sudan, Sultanate of Oman, UK, USA, South Africa, 

Canada and UAE have participated. The participants were sent a set of questionnaires where they 

shared their ideas, challenges and the different mediums they use for e collaboration during the 

pandemic time. The questionnaires were as follows:  

 How would you define E-collaboration? 

 How often do you collaborate virtually with your team / grade / department? 

 Have you ever collaborated with other institutions?  

 How do your learners / students collaborate with other grades / departments / 

institutions?  

 How do you record the evidence of the virtual collaboration?  

 What platform do you use for E collaboration?  

 What are the challenges you face while E collaboration? 

 As a leader what do you think are the success criteria of an effective 

collaboration? 

 What is the percentage of your participants? 

Figure 1. Number of participants from different countries 



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Figure 1 shows the number of participants from different countries from around the world. There 

are 68 participants from 14 countries including the UK, USA, UAE, Canada, KSA, Iraq, India, 

Bangladesh, Pakistan, Lebanon, Vietnam, Oman, Sudan and South Africa.  

Figure 2. Collaboration with other institutions 

Figure 2 shows the scenario of various institutions collaborating among themselves. 24 

institutions said that they collaborate with the other institutions whereas 22 institutions are not in 

collaboration with others.  

Figure 3. The various online platforms used by different institutions for e collaboration 

From figure 3 we see the different online platforms used by various institutions for e 

collaboration. 28% of the institutions use Zoom, 9% use Google Meet, 4% use Microsoft Team 



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and the percentage of using Schoology, Messenger, Facebook Live and Google Drive is 1% 

each. 

Figure 4. Collaboration of the leaders between different institutions 

Figure 4 describes the scenario of collaboration of the leaders of various institutions. 20 leaders 

from different institutions participated in the survey and 19 of them are used to collaborating 

with other institutions and 1 leader is with no answer. 

Figure 5. The different mediums/ ways used by leaders for e collaboration 

Figure 5 gives a picture of how the leaders of different institutions collaborate with people in and 

outside their institutions. They are collaborating through phone calls, messenger groups, google 

docs, google slides, google meet, microsoft team and various social media apps.  



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To collect information about collaboration we have interviewed teachers and leaders from 

different institutions. One of the interviewees was Mr. Ali Ezzeddine who is the founder of 4 

Generations 4 Education and the other interviewee was Mr. Chad Hyatt and he is an IB 

practitioner and workshop leader.  

The interview questions and response is given below: (Mr. Ali Ezzeddine):  

Q.1: What is the objective of 4 Generation 4 Education?  

Ans: 4 Generations 4 Education was established 5 years ago in 2015. The objective is to provide 

quality professional development to teachers across the globe. The professional development 

sessions are offered in English, French and Arabic.   

Q.2: How do you provide support to the educators? 

Ans: We try to provide support by offering professional development sessions for educators. The 

professional development sessions are offered in English, Arabic and French. We try to provide 

support at a personal level by replying to their mail. Then by meeting with schools on the basis 

of their needs. We work on improving teaching and learning in English. We offer training 

sessions, observe classes and give feedback.   

Q.3: How many countries have you collaborated so far? 

Ans: More than 15 countries including USA, UAE, Qatar, Malaysia and so on.  

Q.4: What are the challenges you face while collaborating? 

Ans: Some challenges are shortage of time, daily follow up, understanding the approach of the 

participants etc.  

Q.5: What are the major factors we should keep in mind while collaborating with other 

countries? 

Ans: While collaborating with other countries, understanding their culture is a major factor we 

should keep in mind.  

The interview questions and response is given below: (Mr. Chad Hyatt): 

Q. 1: How do you collaborate in your organization?  

Ans: We collaborate within the team in two ways. We follow synchronous and asynchronous 

ways of meeting. 

Q.2: How your institution collaborates with other educational institutions?  

Ans: We use a common platform “HOOSIER” which is an association of IB world schools to 

meet or collaborate with the other institutions where all the IB schools of our locality share their 

best practices.  

Q.3: How do you record your meeting minutes?  



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Ans: We use google doc to record the meeting minutes.  

Q.4: Do you have any specific schedule for meeting with your other faculties?  

Ans: We have formal and informal schedules of meeting with the grade level teachers and 

specialized teachers.  

 

THE CHALLENGES OF E-COLLABORATION 

Lack of ICT literacy 

One of the hardest challenges of e collaboration is the lack of ICT literacy of teachers, learners 

and parents. In many underdeveloped and developing countries still there are no arrangements 

for ICT training for teachers. Same is the case for the learners and parents as well. Specially the 

learners and parents from the rural areas do not have the technical knowhow of operating IT 

devices and using various apps.  

 

Unavailability of internet facilities 

Another challenge in having successful e collaboration is the unavailability of adequate internet 

access. Rural and remote areas of countries such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan etc are not 

having a good internet connection. The BD Bureau of Statistics Multiple Cluster Survey 2019 

shows that only 37.6 percent of households in the country have access to the internet. It also 

shows that only 5.6 percent of households have a computer. 

 

Difference in time zone 

Difference in the time zones is another issue that makes e collaboration challenging sometimes. 

Collaborating with the learners, speakers or guest speakers of different time zones requires a 

special adjustment in time. The meeting time needs to be agreed according to the convenience of 

everyone. Recently Abdul kadir Molla International School in Narsingdi, Bangladesh arranged a 

round table dialogue between the learners of different schools from different countries where 

learners inquired about the culture, tradition, language of each other's countries. Many schools 

were interested to participate in this event but because of the difference in the time zone 7 

schools from India, Thailand and Japan could participate.  

 

Ensuring participation of every member and making it interactive 

Participation of all the members is one of the challenging factors in e collaboration. People living 

in different corners of the world with different types of internet access sometimes make it 

difficult for the participants to join the meetings. Making e-collaboration interactive with various 

tools and strategies another challenging task.  

 

E-collaboration in Early Years programmes 

In early years programme e-collaboration becomes a little bit difficult for the kids. It is 

challenging for the early years kids to join the meetings, sharing their ideas and participating in 

the events virtually whereas these tasks are comparatively easier to the primary years kids. 

Inviting guest speakers from other countries and participating in guest speaker sessions, asking 

questions and answering can be a little challenging for the early years kids but easier for the 

primary learners.  

 

 



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Inadequate information about e collaboration blogs, journals, and websites 

Enough information about e collaboration is not available in the websites and blogs. There are 

not enough articles as well. Finding information about e collaboration becomes difficult 

sometimes.   

 

Unwillingness of public institutions to collaborate with others 

In the context of Bangladesh, there is a little effort in public schools, colleges and universities to 

collaborate with other institutions. This unwillingness makes e collaboration difficult in public 

institutions.  

 

Difference in curriculum 

The curriculum followed by different schools is also a factor in e collaboration. In Bangladesh, 

the national curriculum does not emphasize any theme based education system which could lead 

the learners to explore different concepts such as tradition, language, culture, history and 

geography whereas IB curriculum enables the learners to collect information on the focused 

theme through collaboration.  For example, if a learner is inquiring about the transport theme, the 

learner will inquire in a broad scale such as the transportation system in Bangladesh and other 

countries, they will collect information about the most common transports in other countries 

through guest speaker session or finding information about transport of other countries from the 

learners of other schools through round table dialogues. This is how the theme based learning 

provides comparatively more opportunities for collaboration which is limited in national 

curriculum.  

 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE E-COLLABORATION 

 To make e collaboration effective both government and non-government organizations 

(NGO) should come up with some projects of providing ICT training for teachers and 

students as ICT literacy is the most crucial factor in virtual learning. The ICT ministry can 

arrange workshops for leaders of different institutions. There should be some steps regarding 

ensuring good internet facilities.  

  E collaborators should use different interactive strategies by using various IT tools to make 

the meetings successful.  

 Specialists should come up with some interactive child friendly strategies for early years 

learners. Renowned faces should be invited as the guest speakers as little children take a bit 

longer to interact with new people.  

 Research and development sector should come up with educational institutions based blogs, 

journals describing the picture of e collaboration in different institutions. Researchers should 

be appointed by the ICT ministry to research on e collaboration so that there is enough 

information about it on the internet.  

 Revising the curriculum might provide learners opportunities for collaboration with other 

learners across the world. Emphasizing on the theme based learning will lead the learners 

towards effective collaboration by inquiring about the focused theme based information from 

the learners from different countries of the world.  

 

LIMITATIONS 
There are some limitations of this study. One of the limitations is the unavailability of data on the 

internet. There are not enough articles, journals or publications on collaboration. Another 



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limitation is the inability to move or travel due to the pandemic. It was not possible for us to visit 

the educational institutions and collect data. 

  

CONCLUSION 

Collaboration is an indispensable part of teaching and learning. As the entire education system 

has been shifted virtually because of the deadly pandemic, collaboration is also supposed to take 

place virtually. Despite the challenges e collaboration is taking place throughout the world. The 

challenges can be overcome and e collaboration can be made more effective and interactive by 

adopting appropriate tools and strategies for the learners and participants.  

 

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Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the 

journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative 

Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). 

 
 


