In late March 2020, when it became apparent that the pandemic would completely define the year(s) ahead, Quartz magazine published an article titled "The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping education" (Anderson, 2020). The author quotes Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD's Education and Skills Directorate. Schleicher's perspective on post-pandemic education is enthusiastic, calling the pandemic's disruption a "great moment" for education in which "students will take ownership over their learning, understanding more about how they learn, what they like, and what support they need. They will personalize their learning even if the systems around them won't" (ibid.). More than a year after this article was published, the pandemic continues. The words quoted above become increasingly puzzling as we add up the various losses in reports of adolescent mental health deterioration, learning loss, burnout, and overall pandemic fatigue (Aguiar et al., 2021; Ewing in Cooper, 2020; Polónyiová, 2021; Jones, Mitra in Bhuiyan, 2021; Mælan, Gustavsen in Stranger-Johannessen, 2021 WHO, 2020).
As part of its strategy to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Slovenia, like many other countries, implemented school closures and distance education for a total of 154 days; in addition, there were shorter periods of combined education (see Kustec et al. 2021). While there are some national studies on the impact and consequences of distance education in Slovenia (Ermenc Skubic, Kalin and Mažgon, 2021; Gabrovec et al., 2021; Marjanovič Umek, Hacin Beyazoglu and Fekonja, 2021; Oblak Črnič, 2020; Rupnik Vec et al. 2020), this research focused mainly on the first wave of school closures in spring 2020. In our paper, we present the results of a qualitative study that aimed to gain insight into lower and upper secondary students' experiences with distance education after the two waves of school closures in Slovenia. Our research on distance education is an addendum to a broader project focusing on youths' media repertoires. The interviews were designed to reveal critical differences in demographic characteristics, family situation, lifestyle and technological equipment, indirect cultural capital, and environment. The comprehensive questionnaire included four separate sections: 1) media practices, social networks, and technological preferences; 2) family technology endowment, access, and micro-regulation; 3) peers and school - norms and habits, incentives and constraints; and 4) technology appropriation in school. However, considering the radical disruption in students' daily lives caused by the pandemic, we could not ignore the issues regarding distance education and added three questions on this topic.
Therefore, in our presentation we will focus on some of the findings from the interviews with the students. We will focus primarily on three interrelated themes: their "pandemic" school day, the benefits and shortcomings of distance learning, and their perceptions of changes in knowledge acquisition. In addition, we will relate these findings to some of the fundamental processes and mechanisms that constitute education, broadly understood in line with Gert Biesta's theory of education (Biesta, 2012, 2016). Thus, we see students' insights about distance education as indicative of broader educational processes that constitute essential parts of education and its experience.

Our paper focuses on data from the Slovenian national study Youth's Media Repertoires (2020-2023), in which the authors of this paper collaborated with a broader research team. The team collected qualitative data on media repertoires from 67 secondary school students (12-19 years old, 30 male and 37 female) and conducted 27 semi-structured group interviews with them between February and June 2021. Due to the epidemiological situation, we did not conduct interviews in the classrooms of selected 15 elementary and high schools in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Instead, we developed the method of online group interviews with pairs or dyads and triads of students or students. According to Lobe and Morgan (2020), whose study compared group interviews with two and four participants, it is challenging to engage more than four or more people at a time in an online interview. Therefore, the triad served as a model for group interviews. However, groups of two were also used to create a more intimate and confidential setting, especially when interviewing young people of low or special socioeconomic status. In four cases, the interview was exceptionally conducted with only one person. Typically, an interview lasted 1-2 hours. The interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed. Anonymity and privacy of the interviewees were maintained. We took special care to choose the right online platform for conducting video calls. According to Lobe, Morgan, and Hoffman (2020), it should offer certain functionalities, such as video transmission and recording of audio and video. In addition, we chose a platform that was familiar to students and did not require any other software than the one the students were already using for instruction during the Covid 19 epidemics. After we obtained informed consent from parents or students (18 years or older), the moderator sent participants a zoom link and instructions to find a quiet place without disturbances. At the beginning, we explained the purpose of the study, described the method of data processing, and the process of anonymizing the collected data. Since in this article we are limited to students' media practices and technological preferences related to their experience with distance education, only these parts of the interviews were analyzed. We open-coded the material and then summarized the categories that our paper will present in our paper.

Our research suggests that students' experiences with distance education are multifaceted. To some extent, our research confirms previous research that has shown that students can identify both the benefits (such as more autonomy in time management, more time to sleep) and the shortcomings (lack of motivation, concentration, erosion of routines and relationships) of distance education. In terms of knowledge acquisition, most of our respondents indicated that they learned less during distance schooling. Our respondents also indicated that the duration of the pandemic, school closures, and other measures to contain the spread of the virus had a negative impact on their experience. Our respondents reported fatigue, lack of motivation, lack of concentration, loss of meaning, and difficulty constantly adapting to change. In this context, many emphasized that they enjoyed the first wave of distance education, which they often associated with lower demands from teachers, but struggled with the second wave of school closures. Thus, the experiences of our interviewees suggest that distance education should be an opportunity for educational reflection and change, but not necessarily in terms of more personalized or technology-enhanced instruction, because what students missed most in distance education was not the personalization or variety of instruction, but the relationships with their classmates and their teachers as the crucial element that distinguishes a good education from mere learning (Biesta, 2012, 2016.). In conclusion, the greatest moment of distance education, at least to our participants, may just be its end.

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