It's funny how you think that you've solved most problems that might crop up before your lessons start. But students are used to being able to ask their teacher or class mate questions that pop up. Online distance learning meant that today I spent a lot of time troubleshooting for students, replying to emails as they navigated their way through tasks and were unsure of a few things, and replying to queries from parents. Building students confidence in being able to work remotely will be a key issue moving forward.
It is important to reassure parents that they are not expected to replace their child’s teacher. Their teachers are the experts in the practice of teaching and learning, and I will support their child in every way I can.
Positives today were
- everyone getting to see each other at our Class Google Meet
- excitement levels were high
- 23 students at our Google Meet
- students emailing me if they encountered problems straight away
- reading their work on their blogs and commenting
Things for me to think about:
- creating a Google Form at the end of the week asking students how they found the Room 1 Weekly Slides. Were 4 activities each day too much? I know Wednesday would have been a big day with them creating a google slide presentation on Holy Week.
- creating a Google Form for them to fill in if they have problems.
Manaiakalani very kindly offered workshops for the week Monday 6 April - Thursday 9 April. These are being run to support teachers so they can connect with their learners and have class sites ready to go for the start of term.
I wasn't able to attend the live workshops I wanted to but read the google slides and watched recordings of the Google Meets. I then asked Cheryl Torrie to join me in a Google Meet to clarify anything I didn't understand or things they didn't cover which I was wanting to know about.
GOOGLE MEET - Maria Krausse
Using Google Meet to connect face to face with learners for instruction or troubleshooting.
I was intersted in this one because I wanted to make sure I had a handle on everything before Term 2 starts next week. I was pleased to know that I have the main ideas sorted and just needed to add a few extensions to Chrome:
1. Grid view (I had actually installed this last week) - you can see everyone that is in the Meet in a grid. Good to get kids to do thumbs up or down as a quick response.
2. Meet Attendance - this collects the names of attendees and puts them into a Google Sheet. You can also keep adding to the Sheet for each Meet. This is what I need help with.
3. Nod - allows emojis as a quick response. There is a hands up one which would be good if kids want to ask a question.
Meet attendance - I asked Cheryl about this. I am still a little confused. The google sheet seemed to create a new sheet every time we wanted a time stamp. I want one sheet per Meet. I need to do time stamps in case students drop in and out of our meetings. Hopefully I will have this sorted before next Wednesday (first day of Term 2).
SCREENCASTIFY - Amy Williams
Using Screencastify to provide welcome videos and instructions for learning.
I was interested in this as I wanted to know how to put my Screencastify onto slides. Next week I am using daily slides so my students have very clear instructions of what is required. I want to add a Screencastify so that my lower level learners can visually see what I mean. (I have the upgraded Screencastify version which is free until the end of April. This version means you can record longer than the 5mns which the basic version offers.) This workshop didn't get to that stage so I was able to ask Cheryl during our Google Meet. I recorded our session so I will refer back to it later.
