The overnight, almost totalitarian plunge into the online world of educational lockdown was like diving into a chilly pool. Only with the worst bit, the trepidation - shuddering on the side, looking in, imagining the cold - removed, because it happened overnight, instantly.

And when we got into those streams of online learning, even for the less confident swimmers, it was better than we thought. As each working day ended, there were usually sunny skies above us. We were surprised at what we could do.

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Individual lockdown spaces

At times, though, in the depths of lockdown, it almost felt as if this - the new world of Zoom, Teams, G Suite and social media - was how life would be from now on. Teachers, leaders and students, suddenly reduced to physically distant contributors from our individual lockdown spaces.

Forever.

It made me recall the one text from my O-level English Literature (1984-85) that actually made an enjoyable impression on me: a science-fiction novella by EM Forster called The Machine Stops. This imagines a future world where human beings have become anaemic blobs, living alone in cells, surrounded by technology that does their bidding, communicating only via sound and images relayed by a technological network. Physical meetings and, particularly, touch are frowned upon. The scenario, as I remember it, begins to resonate.

The remarkable thing is that Forster wrote the story, which effectively conceives the internet, artificial intelligence and domestic automation, in 1909. Nineteen. Hundred. And nine. Just ponder that for a moment. So, some of it doesn’t stand up, and on rereading it (acquired for 99p on an e-reader), for the first time in 35 years, I found it was of variable quality. But the idea. Even reading it in 1985, when thousands of technological futures had been posited, it seemed unlikely for us, with just one BBC Microcomputer in the school, as I recall.

Of course, in this story, as the title alludes, the peril occurs when the all-providing machine fails and humanity has neither the physical wherewithal nor apparatus to survive without it. A massive cyberattack is second on the UK government’s risk register, apparently, just to cheer you up.

I digress. Maybe. Forward to the 2020s. Smartphones, broadband and devices have proliferated, fuelling a gradual shift of culture online: increased screen time, less outdoor time, less physical exercise, less conventional socialisation. There has been much research, debate and endless opinion as to how much of a problem this is. The coronavirus experience has and no doubt will continue to accelerate more of life’s transactions into the online and virtual world.

Online learning can be effective

Is this the point at which developed countries begin to tip inexorably into the nightmare, online-dominated world of Forster’s machine and a thousand other authors’ dystopias? No. Other countries, on the other side of lockdown, are already experiencing that this is not the case. We aren’t caught up with them yet, and I think that is affecting our optics and expectations in many walks of life and in education.

Most colleges will have found out that online working can be effective, with the amount that works increasing in line with educational level and (generally) student age. For some learners, especially at higher levels, their engagement has been better than for classroom learning. Blended learning and fewer journeys will provide savings of cost and time and safety benefits for learners and our staff, whether they are in cities or rural areas with real transport challenges. And environmental benefits for society. Essential online skills, both technical and social, can be embedded into learning.

However, the enthusiasm that this is generating needs to be tempered with the knowledge that there have been fewer distractions of late, and that our lockdown learners generally benefited from at least six months’ studying in college and developing working relationships with their tutors before plunging online. It will be different, harder, with new students in the autumn. And while a single term of online learning might work, enthusiasm has dropped as it has continued on. The tasks that can be solely achieved online have been completed.

So, if social distancing or local lockdowns (my money would be on much less of the former and more of the latter) reduce “campus time” for higher-level learners, what they do get on site had better be very effective.

For some learners at lower levels, those with technological and social barriers at home, and of course those with practical skills to learn, a substantial return to campus will be needed. For those in poverty, and who need the structured support a college provides, a more or less full-time return will be essential and best. There is a technological and financial hurdle of broadband and device availability to realise these benefits for all.

But I think there is a more powerful reason we will resume physical learning more substantially than we may think at this moment in our journey through the Covid-19 era. It will have been beginning this week, as students and staff, liberated temporarily from video, learning platforms and email, experience again the power of working and conversing in the same space. The relief of being able to pick up the nuances of body language and expression, of working and creating with tools and materials again. The satisfaction of knitting together real-world teams.

The effectiveness of having face-to-face meetings for substantive topics. God, they will seem good, and will be used wisely now, where the travel and time to get there are worth it. The simple joy of seeing each other, and being able to have the side conversations that video learning reduces to typed comments. The comfort of being in familiar classrooms and spaces, even if they are arranged unfamiliarly. The normality of putting one foot in front of the other, and heading to college.

When we can get back to it, make no mistake, our college staff and our students will want “real”.

Phil Sayles is principal and chief executive of Selby College