COVID-19 and Online Learning Tools

TL;DR

This study analyzes how COVID-19 has influenced global interest in various online learning tools by examining Google Trends data, providing insights for educators to identify popular solutions during the pandemic.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using Google Trends data to quantify public interest in online learning tools during COVID-19, aiding educators in selecting effective digital solutions.

Findings

Increased global interest in online learning tools during COVID-19.

Identification of the most popular online education solutions.

Provision of a reproducible analytical framework with R code.

Abstract

Distance education has a long history. However, COVID-19 has created a new era of distance education. Due to the increasing demand, various distance learning solutions have been introduced for different distance education purposes. In this study, we investigated the impact of COVID-19 on global attention towards different distance learning-teaching tools. We used Google Trend search queries as a proxy to quantify the popularity and public interest towards different distance education solutions. Both visual and analytical approaches were used to analyze global-level web search queries during the COVID-19 pandemic. This can provide a fast first step guide to identifying the most popular online learning tools available for different educational purposes. The results allow the teachers to narrow down the search space and deepen their exploration of prominent distance education solutions to support their online teaching. The R code and data to reproduce the results of this work are available in the online supplementary materials.