School starts again. You really couldn’t (at least many apparently) expect that. It’s almost like the snowfall that likes to throw the train off the track, so incredibly surprising that everything sinks into chaos. Thousands of students and teachers tried today and in the past few days to register on the various learning platforms, many failed.

Now that is not so much the problem Again and again the teachers are accused of a lack of digital competence, it is due to the learning platforms. Apparently they could not count on such a rush to start school. Or does it? Oh yes, there can be snowfall in Germany. In Germany there is a start date for schools and the number of pupils who are dependent on the platforms is also known. So why are there so many failures?

IServ does not want any more complaint emails After the learning disaster occurred in some federal states last week was, the next providers shone this Monday with total failure. IServ advertises on its website with 317 years of experience and 4502 satisfied schools as well as 2nd 317. 892 satisfied users. But none of them had access to video conferences today. In the mail from a school management to the college, which heise online is available, it says:

” There are currently general problems with the IServ video conference module and it is not possible to open or join conferences. We are working flat out to correct the error and will update this message as soon as we have more detailed information. Individual contact from you is not necessary and would only lead to delays in our support. ”

At Netzwelt, the peak value of the error messages in the morning was 3403. It is questionable whether this leaves only satisfied schools and users. After all, the mail should have been checked. Also 2021 this does not seem to be a matter of course for learning platforms.

Functionality as news value Also astonishing: “The Mebis learning platform is currently running without problems”. That was the headline of the news site Nordbayern.de. Despite the restriction in the headline, it is a joke that the functioning of an Internet portal of the Bavarian Ministry of Culture has news value – instead of being taken for granted.

Eva-Maria Weiß studied communication science with a focus on media psychology at the University of Vienna and has been working as a journalist since then.

Last week Mebis, Lernsax in Saxony and the study room in Berlin had problems made. The Saxon platform said that the reason was not a capacity problem, but a technical problem in the data center. In Hamburg, however, the server capacities had to be upgraded. Schools that use outdated, school-owned servers have been obliged to purchase new hardware at short notice. Not before the end of the Christmas holidays, but on the second day after school starts.

No influence at the Ministry Heise asked online why IServ also went down on its knees during the video conferences and is waiting for the answer. The Moodle-based system Logineo in North Rhine-Westphalia is also said to have had some failures. But the Ministry of Education said to the dpa: So far, there has been no feedback that major problems with Moodle had occurred in North Rhine-Westphalia. Many schools also use other systems over which the ministry has no influence.

“No influence” – on their own schools. The fact that every federal state has to choose and decide on teaching and learning aids when digitizing schools has already been criticized several times. The fact that a ministry now claims that it has no influence and thus shifts the blame for problems that are actually in-house is absurd. Somebody should urgently take a general influence on this chaos. It really doesn’t come as a surprise.

(emw)