Remote Learning Challenges and solutions

Remote Learning Challenges and solutions

Remote Learning, Distance learning, Blended Learning are all buzz words being thrown about right now. With so many schools closing and so many courses being thrown online it is becoming more and more clear that we should have been farther along with elearning than we truly are. No one could have predicted the massive school closures which have occured, but we all are very well aware that we have between 1 and 10 students absent each and every day of school. The question I asked early on was “What can I do for these students who have lost a day's worth of instructions?” To combat these absences I made sure I recorded all my lessons with YouTube live. I took this recording and I put it in Edpuzzle to make sure the lesson is stopped and the most important ideas and a question is asked. I presented all my slide decks in Nearpod so I could have available the student paced slide deck with questions embedded for those who were not there in person. I made sure each student knew to check Google classroom everyday if they were absent so they would not miss a thing and finally I created a 24/7 office hour Flipgrid so students could ask me questions regardless of time or place. This type of blended learning and allowing the technology to archive information for students to later participate helped me prepare for this situation. Hopefully more and more teachers will begin to use technology on a daily basis so in the case of rolling class closures we will be a bit more prepared. But for now, here are a few solutions to problems many are sure to encounter in a remote learning environment.

Remote learning comes with many challenges. Teachers will need to have a routine to assign work, assess student learning and maintain classroom collaboration though the remote learning time frame. Students will need to be able to easily access assignments, collaborate with fellow students, and be able to reach their instructor whenever they have a question. Luckily there is technology available today which can help to overcome these challenges and make remote learning a success. Along with the technology teachers will need tools to hold students accountable for assigned work, encourage collaboration between students and the teacher, and keep learning personable by utilizing live webcam streams.Finally teacher will need to be available to be able to create an air of normalcy and to connect the class back into the community structure they had in class. If deployed successfully, students will not miss a beat of instruction during this remote learning timeframe.

One of the most difficult tasks in a remote learning setting is keeping students accountable and on task with daily activities. In order to maintain class standards and organization instructors must consistently assign and collect student work in one Learning Management System (LMS). Whether you are using Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, Canvas or another LMS, teachers must consistently check on assignment progress and completion. Teachers must utilize their LMS to communicate with students who are falling behind, not checking in, or not completing work to the best of their ability. Keeping an open communication channel is always important as well to ensure students can ask the instructor questions on assignments. While the communication channels in your LMS may meet this need, Utilizing the free application Flipgrd can enhance this communication by putting students in face to face contact with their instructors and fellow students in a nonlinear time frame. Flipgrid is also a great place for non-course communications and to allow students to see each other while they are home learning. It is very important for student to keep this connection with the class and their instructor.

Assessments can also pose a problem in a remote learning environment, but luckily there are many educational technology tools available to assist with both formative and summative assessments. Both Microsoft and Google have Forms which can be used to ask multiple types of assessment questions. These products both allow for the instructor to select an autograde option which allows teachers and students to automatically receive assessment results. There are many other tools available to allow for assessments of all types. Quizizz and Kahoot are great for formative assessments to check for understanding, but do so in a gamified fashion. Both allow student paced and/or homework options to allow students to take the assessment at different times. If you want to include the students in a distance quiz creation activity, try using the Kids Quiz creator hack I created for both Quizizz and Kahoot. In a matter of minutes the students can create and participate in a whole class created quizz. EdPuzzle is used as a great way to assess students on content related video questions and Edji helps to assess student reading comprehension for any readings in any format you have available. If you have students who need to model a mathematical equation or science concept, the use of an online whiteboard can be key. By using Microsoft Whiteboard or Google Jamboard students can ink their concept and then use Screencastify to record this thought process. Flipgrid even has a whiteboard function for quick checks for understanding. Rest assured, whatever the task, whatever the assessment there is a tool to help in your remote learning plan.

Lastly, one of the most difficult aspects of remote learning is conducting  live classroom instruction. The difficulty lies in the fact that students may or may not show up to these live discussions and will result in many of the students not receiving the background information they will need to know to complete a task. Fortunately both Microsoft and Google have video casting and recording capabilities. In Microsoft teams and Google Hangout Meet the instructor can cast any screen to their students, have face to face conversations with the class, and record this event to be viewed later by those students who did not attend. These videos can be placed in your class LMS for easy review or turned into an Edpuzzle to help guide the students who did not attend the live sessions.The  Live classroom instruction can be enhanced with the use of collaborative slide decks such as Peardeck and Nearpod. In these decks teachers can control the pace of a slide deck, check for understanding with multiple question types, and access student data anytime during or after the session has ended. If you use Peardeck through Google Slides and have the Peardeck power-up extension installed, you can enable closed captioning during the Peardeck. This is a very sneaky hack which you can see how to do here. These slide decks can also be handed out as student paced sessions so students who did not attend the live session can still complete the slide deck assessments. If you absolutely cannot have a live session and you can keep your lessons to under five minutes, you can always used screencastify to record yourself going over the lesson and upload the video into a Flipgrid topic. Here students at any time during the week can watch and then leave their thoughts on what was shares. A great way to include a lesson while not having to worry about students making it for a live sessions.

If you have been asked to jump into this elearning experiment without any training, I know the outlook is daunting. But let's remember that the tool is not what makes a great lesson, you are what makes a great lesson. We just have to take you in person lesson plan and insert tools which will help students collaborate, communicate and create online. We just need a singular place where a teacher can distribute materials and also receive materials. Now is not the time to go crazy trying out many new tools, but now is the time to learn the basics of the tools you have available to you. You know how to get kids to think. You know how to get kids to contribute. Now you just have to do it in a different medium. If you set out with a plan, this journey will be a little less rocky. Safe Teaching!

The Sons of Technology Podcast Episode 029: Embracing the Agony of Disappointment

The Sons of Technology Podcast

Episode 029: Embracing the Agony of Disappointment

Joe & Kyle sit down at the Clubhouse table IN PERSON at Lead Dog Brewing in Reno, Nevada and chat about how disappointment is inevitable but it can be a learning experience!  

Join the #EdtechArmy by completing our Flipgrid challenge at https://flipgrid.com/774e42d6.

Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeMarquez70 and Kyle @AndersonEdTech.  Visit sonsoftechnology.com and andersonedtech.net for more great stuff from Joe & Kyle!

Green Eggs and Ham: The Best TOSA/Coaching Handbook

Green Eggs and Ham:

The best TOSA/coaching handbook

You do not like them.

So you say. 

Tyr them! Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may, I say.

~ Sam I Am

I was recently reading Green Eggs and Ham with my little girls, Coletta 3 and Ellery 1. After I read any book to them I always do a short recap of the story with them and always talk about what the story means and how it could apply to us. With Green Eggs and Ham we talked about how we may like things which others may not like initially, but we also learn that we should always keep an open mind to try new things as to not miss out on new opportunities. This last time we read the book we talked about how even though others may say no the first time, if we feel others will benefit from it, we should always be persistent and find opportunities to suggested the item again. It was in this moment I had a revelation, Green Eggs and Ham is the ultimate handbook to help coaches and TOSAs encourage teachers to try new things.

So hear me out on this. “Sam I am” absolutely LOVES Green Eggs and Ham. He loves it so much it seems like all he talks about. “Guy”, never named in the book but recently named in the Netflix cartoon, wants nothing to do with Sam or his Green Eggs and Ham. No matter how cheerful or colorful Sam is in his presentation, Guy has no interest in the content of this conversation. In fact, Guy is hard pressed to even look up from his laptop, err Newspaper, while Sam is reporting how great his Green Eggs and Ham are. Sam could have cut his losses here and tried another “friend” but he knows his friend and truly believes Guy will love Green Eggs and Ham if he would just give them a shot. So instead of giving up, he looks for other instances where the Green Eggs and Ham could be tried and like by Guy. This is the persistence needed to overcome the initial rebukes.

Hey Guy, how about we try them HERE or maybe over THERE? No? What about if you try them in a box with a fox? No? Why not try them with a mouse in a house? No? Why not try them on a train in the rain? No? Why not try them on a boat with a goat? No? You see here Sam is not just pushing Guy to just try the Green Eggs and Ham, he is giving him different examples where the item might actually be useful for Guy to try. Sam truly believes Guy will benefit from his recommendation so he does not give up. Sam keeps his head up until Guy finally decides to give them a try and you know what? He likes them. He likes them so much he sees how they would be good in all the previous instances Sam recommended beforehand.

As content coaches and TOSAs, we have all given PD and presentations which we believe our fellow staff members would find useful. Some may try what you are recommending, but others may instantly rebuke your ideas and do not see how the content applies to them or how they would use it in their class. It takes persistence by us coaches to show HOW the content, tools, or applications can change their classroom. This is done by working directly with individuals and recommend where the tools and practices could easily fit in with the lessons and curriculum they are already teaching. Replace fox in a box with “Try Flipgrid, why not as the conclusion in your lab report solution” or “Why not try Nearpod for instant insights, during your Civil War discussion on those Gray vs Blue fights?” Why not… HERE… Why not THERE?

As coaches and TOSAs all we want is for our fellow teachers to give our ideas a shot. We are not offering a one size fits all solution, rather we are offering ideas that you can then mold to fit into your current content. These new ideas may be bizarre to some teachers, as off putting as Green Eggs and Ham, but if you truly believe in the effectiveness of your content, tools, abilities and workflows, then you need to be as persistent as Sam I am so that they at least take that initial taste. You never know they may say “Hey! I like Edji and the New Flipgrid Cam! I do! I do like them Sam I am! And I will use them during a lesson, and they will help with my paper congestion! Getting there may not be “over easy” but the end result is always fun when the hunger for more begins!


NOTE: If you liked this blog please listen to our Sons of Technology Podcast, Episode 028: Inspiration Through Pop Culture for more ideas of how pop culture can change your thoughts and approach to teaching and coaching.

The Sons of Technology Podcast Episode 028: Inspiration Through Pop Culture

The Sons of Technology Podcast

Episode 028: Inspiration Through Pop Culture

Published on: January 20, 2020

Joe & Kyle sit down at the Clubhouse table and chat about some ways that they have been inspired by pop culture.  Topics range from movies, television, music, and much more!  

Join the #EdtechArmy by completing our Flipgrid challenge at https://flipgrid.com/774e42d6