For 18-year-old Huang Yiyang, "school" began when she opened her laptop.

For the past two weeks, Huang's "school" had no bell to signal the end of class, noisy corridors, noisy canteen or uniforms. Instead of going to school in Shanghai, Huang sat in front of a laptop screen at home from 8am to 5pm, in pajamas, attended live streaming classes.

With PE class, the teacher will practice the movements through the camera and the students follow. With the English class, Huang sat silently listening to the lecture from afar with 20 or 30 other classmates.

Huang stuck a sticker or napkin on the webcam so his classmates wouldn't see her if the teacher called Huang to answer the question. "Everyone is at home so not everyone looks well," she said.

Huang rarely leaves home and she hasn't seen friends for a month because China is fighting the Covid-19 epidemic and to prevent the nCoV from spreading, authorities have ordered schools to be closed across the country, causing 180 Millions of school-aged teenagers are stuck at home.

Not only in China, students in Vietnam, Mongolia, Japan, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Italy also fall into the same situation. Officials in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have warned they will close schools if the epidemic gets worse.

To take distance classes, the devices are mostly the same, just a computer with an Internet connection and a headset and microphone. However, the method of organizing online classes is different for each school and each country.

For Huang, studying at home meant she spent hours in front of the computer and had very little social interaction. There was no classroom discussion and Huang often did not hear what the teacher said because of the poor internet connection. She feels her classmates and even her teachers are having difficulty maintaining motivation.

"We can't give feedback to our teachers even if we want to. Therefore, teachers feel bad and we feel awkward," she said. Even after the online class ended, Huang's work did not stop. She usually stays up until 10 pm every night, completing assignments to submit online.

Through distance-learning classes, although she did not meet her friends in person, Huang said that in reality, she felt closer to her friends because everyone spoke more, seemingly all yearning to play. chat, connect.

According to Xinhua news agency, Chinese elementary and high school students are required to take online classes. Authorities began broadcasting elementary school classes on television and launched a cloud-based learning application.

In Hong Kong, where schools have been closed for a month, teachers have a different approach. At Montessori International School, students gather in small groups on the Google Hangout application to see and talk to each other.

The school initially only posted videos of lectures and activities for students, but later they realized that it was more important to help students interact with one another and talk to the teacher.

"They all feel uncomfortable because they are locked in apartments," said Montessori International School principal Adam Broomfield. "We have never experienced school closures as they are now."

According to him, changing the way of learning really brings breakthroughs. Students will now record videos and explain how they solve a math problem and the teacher will shoot videos from the beach to help students better understand the geographic lesson.

While mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students are accustomed to learning online, in Italy, where 888 cases of nCoV have been recorded, students are just starting to learn from distance.

Schools in Lombardy and Veneto regions in northern Italy were closed last week because of the disease.

In Milan, Gini Dupasquier's two daughters learn through live presentations on PowerPoint, work in groups with other students thanks to Google Hangout and video chat with teachers.

"They are happy with this new way of learning. So far, I have not seen any problems," she said.

A bigger problem with Dupasquier and many other parents is how to balance the time between home and work. "I have to change my schedule but it's hard to balance between the two."

In Casalpusterlengo, a town in northern Italy located in the "red zone", where thousands of people have been isolated from the outside world, the 15-year-old daughter of Monica Moretti has no access to livestreaming platforms. Instead, she does her homework with an electronic notebook. Unlike children in China, every afternoon she spends time walking.

Students at higher levels are more likely to face more serious problems than program delays.

Jonathan Ye, 18, a senior student at Shanghai Pacific International School, wants to go to university in England. In order to expand his chances, he needs to get good results at the International Baccalaureate exam in May if he wants to study abroad, something Ye has been fighting for years.

"If you don't get good results at the exam, everything will go down," Ye said. "I think I'll be fine because I like to study by myself but I'm not sure now. I'm still very worried. We haven't been to school yet so we might miss information from the teacher."

But Ye's situation is still better than many other students in China. In June, most high school seniors will enter the High School Exam, one of the world's most stressful and competitive university entrance exams. With the disruption of learning, anxiety is weighing on students. The Chinese Ministry of Education said it was evaluating and will decide whether to postpone the High School Exam.

Although schools in Hong Kong will be closed until April 20, the special zone government will hold a college entrance exam on March 27 as planned. The only difference is that students are forced to wear masks and desks will be located farther apart than usual.

Besides, there are also concerns about studying at home that will affect the psychology of students.

Mental health expert Odile Thiang in Hong Kong said that the loss of habits and social activities can greatly affect children, especially in times of stress like today.

According to Chris Dede, a professor at Harvard University's Pedagogy School, there are many studies showing the negative psychological effects that a student will suffer after being separated from friends because of serious illness. Students studying at home may be subject to the same effects. However, he noted that at present, all schools apply distance learning, so no student will feel lonely and abandoned.

This is not the first time schools in the world have closed or applied distance learning. In countries with severe winters, schools sometimes have to close on heavy snowy days.

Distance learning has long been a topic of concern for educational professionals. Children in remote areas of Australia have been learning for a long time through radio programs.

According to Dede, the combination of classroom learning and online learning is more effective than applying a single method. But the important problem lies not in the medium but in the quality and method of teaching.

"The worst thing for children is being isolated at home without emotional support from friends, without an experienced educator helping them learn," he said.

Even so, Dede thinks that students today are still a lot more fortunate than previous students. "We have social networks, the Internet and smartphones. Therefore, the level of isolation and the opportunity to learn lost at the time two decades ago was much bigger," he said.