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At the end of the day, the lesson learnt was so simple... With online and offline connections, the world is a global village (McLuhan, 1962) and a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia can cause a hurricane all around the world (Lorenz, 1972). Currently, it seems that the global education system is in the middle of this hurricane. These times, where we are all witnessing developments warily, are certainly interesting and strange, but the hope is that lessons will have been learned once things hopefully return to normal. Though there were early warnings to be prepared (White, Ramirez, Smith, & Plonowski, 2010) and already ongoing interruptions to education (Briggs, 2018; GCPEA, 2018), this is the first crisis to occur on the global scale in the digital knowledge age, and there will be socio-cultural, economic, and political consequences in the wake of this crisis. In other words, the educational landscape will feel the rush of air from the butterfly’s flapping wings to the full extent.

In a nutshell, following the CoronaVirus (COVID19) outbreak in December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified COVID19 as a global pandemic in March 2020 (WHO, 2020). To slow down and prevent its spread, many countries followed strict protocols, such as complete lockdowns or regulations to facilitate social distancing, while a few countries preferred herd immunity. Efforts to stop the viral outbreak included working from homes, providing flexible working hours, or closing many institutions where people could infect one another with COVID19. Protocols to shut down buildings involved schools, universities and many other educational institutions. This situation …