Two words are dominating conversations, and if they aren't, the conversation quickly drifts back to the topic: COVID-19 and/or Coronavirus. At present, schooling systems and universities are moving at an accelerating speed to generate digital solutions to meet the challenge of physical distancing brought on by the pandemic. Because many Australian students are not attending schools in a face-to-face capacity, many thousands of initial teacher education students are unable to complete their professional experience placements and therefore their degrees. This will likely have a flow-on effect for getting graduate teachers into the classrooms and potentially exacerbate the teacher shortages being felt across Australia.

The School of Education at the University of New England currently has 92 per cent of its students studying online. Therefore, when COVID-19 appeared in Australian communities, as an Australian university, we were already well placed. However, that doesn't mean that we were able to continue with business as usual.