Staying Connected During Remote Learning
The past few weeks have been challenging in the world. Life has changed and we have seen many aspects of our everyday life impacted and in many cases, we feel unprepared and confused as to what our next steps are and how we can best prepare ourselves for the future.
As educators, our work is even more complex because we now find ourselves providing ways for our students to continue learning during this uncertain time. We do not know for sure how long school closures might continue, with some schools currently closed for two weeks, others currently at six weeks and with the CDC recommending eight weeks or longer in order to mitigate the potential impact of the Coronavirus. Schools being closed for 8 weeks or longer might mean that they will not reopen during the school year. So what do we do?
In our world there is so much technology and many resources, the number one question we must ask and answer is: what access do our families and our students have? There has been a flood of resources shared with access to many edtech tools now made available for free from the different companies. All of this is amazing and wonderful but we still have to focus on the equity piece and making sure we understand what is available.
The biggest area we need to focus on first and to be consistent is in communicating. There is going to be lot of information coming about how to prepare, where to have, how to set up online a remote learning and the best thing we can do is to focus on ways that we can stay connected to communicate with our family and our school
Not every student or family or school may have access to all of the same school so it has to come down to the means of communicating and providing options so that everybody can find something specific.
I think it is important to set up a consistent way to send messages and it might mean that some messages are sent in duplicate but in a different format so that everyone can select something that works for them.
Communicating updates
We must still rely on traditional forms of communication such as email and phone calls, but within our schools we can leverage other tools to streamline the communication in a faster way. Depending on each school, using tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams for communicating and collaborating might be an option. Tools such as Remind or Seesaw have been great options for individual educators to connect with students and families and ParentSquare provides resources for more than communication for schoolwide use. For asynchronous communication using a walkie-talkie app like Voxer can be great for sharing ideas quickly.
The power of connecting
When we shift to remote learning, and this is something that I experienced in my own work as a student, we lose out on social interactions. If we are interacting solely by exchanging ideas through writing in an online space, without any opportunity for audio or video interactions, it makes it more difficult to connect. This lack of social presence has been a concern in regard to online learning for a long time, however there are many ways that educators can promote social presence by leveraging some of the digital tools available. Here are some options:
Voice: Start a podcast to provide class updates, share ideas, or just talk using free tools like Synth or Anchor. Educators can record messages for students, colleagues, the school community using either of these options. With Synth, teachers can create a discussion topic and encourage students to respond to a thread using audio or video. Being able to see and hear directly from classmates and colleagues in the absence of being in the same physical space, can make a big difference in the learning experience and help us to feel more connected. I have used Anchor to share ideas on a variety of topics and it is very easy to get started with.
Video: A big concern is how to provide ongoing instruction and support for our students. We can leverage some of the different tools available for creating short videos that we can share and make available for students and also that we can share with other Educators around the world. There are many free tools out there and some which are also offering free accounts now. Some of those that I have used are Screencastify, Screencast-o-matic, and Loom. Other options for creating instructional videos are tools like Educreations or ShowMe, where you can use an interactive dry erase board or add images to your lesson. For a quick video, a simple Google search can help you to find a webcam recorder which can be used to record and then download an mp4 of your video to share on other platforms.
Multimedia: For more interactive learning options that can include a variety of media and promote collaboration, choosing tools like Buncee, Flipgrid, Padlet or Wakelet, enables teachers to create activities, announcements, lessons and more by leveraging the many options available within each of these. Teachers and students can create with each of these and add in additional resources that are relevant to class or school news.
These are just a few ideas that can be applied at any level and in any content area. As educators, we need to take some risks with new ideas and strategies in our classrooms so that we can not only prepare our students for the future, but so that we can prepare ourselves, especially now during this challenging time in the world.
