It is officially Spring Break here, so planned time off from school. There has been no announcement that the break will be extended, but that's certainly what many are anticipating may happen. Before the break began, I spent Friday teaching crash course style Google Classroom workshops to teachers at both the high school and middle school.
I've taught workshops on Google Classroom before, but those were more along the lines of "this is a fantastic tool you should consider intergrating into your classroom." Here is my presentation, if it's helpful. This was more "checking the box" to the highlighted statement:
Now that I'm home (maybe for just a week, maybe for much longer), I am happy to see a few things happening:
1. There's lots of pushback against simply "putting school online." It's not that easy. Our students don't all have computers, or access to reliable internet (and our public library system just closed hours ago). Learning online is different than in-person instruction, and it can't simply be converted over with a day's notice. I'm grateful for the conversations going on around distance learning and what can and (more importantly) cannot be expected.
2. There are so many educational providers stepping up and providing services free of charge (at least temporarily). There are also individual teachers putting resources they've created themselves online for others to use. This brings to light the need to have a robust and varied online PLN, to be made aware of some of these offers.
3. Administrators, educators, parents and students working together in an hour by hour changing landscape.
I have no idea what the coming weeks will bring, but I am choosing to focus here on what positive things I can:
-every teacher I trained Friday was open, receptive and excited about learning new technologies
-nobody seems rushed to insist we "switch" to online learning without careful considerations
-as educators, we're getting access to many online providers tools and resources that we might not have otherwise been exposed to
Besides that, there's not much else to do, but stay put and ride out this storm as best we can- see you on the other side.
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