Teacher Support: Online Learning Resources During COVID-19
As the world grapples with the Coronavirus pandemic, educators are forced to rethink how they can connect with students who are now learning at home. Students across the country are forced to rethink how they learn as online learning becomes their only option. Many students don’t have reliable Internet access or the necessary digital devices, which is forcing school boards to think outside the box. It may not be smooth at first, but we will all adjust as social distancing measures are mandated from coast to coast for the time being.
Teachers and students are quickly learning how to adjust to a new normal for the remainder of the school year due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
How Can Educators, Students, and Caregivers Cope?
In a word? Together. Whether in elementary or high school, one hundred percent online learning is new for teachers and students alike. There will be bumps, but we’ll manage if we keep the lines of communication open. It’s important for educators to relay to parents and caregivers that they should not stress about becoming teachers themselves. Parents and caregivers need to monitor how much time their child spends online so as not to overwhelm them. Children should go online each day to find out what is expected of them, spend time completing required assignments, and then get back to family activities, such as playing games, watching movies, and baking.
“There’s really no expectation [that] overnight, parents are going to morph into teachers. Don’t put that pressure on yourself.”
Kate Winn
Education expert, teacher and parent to two daughters in Grades 6 and 8
from an article on Global News
It’s important for families to spend time together and do activities.
What Digital Resources Should I Use?
With so many digital tools available, it can be overwhelming to figure out the right education technology for your needs and the needs of those in your community. It’s also impossible to make the transfer from a face-to-face classroom experience to a complete online classroom experience—in a matter of weeks—without a few hiccups! Having said this, there are two superior digital resources worth considering: Pear Deck and WeVideo.
Remote Learning with Pear Deck
Many educators across all disciplines are using Pear Deck to create engaging, media-rich lessons that students can participate in—either in a group or individually—while learning at home. Pear Deck integrates with tools that most teachers already use, such as Google Slides and Microsoft. You can insert text, images, and drawings into ready-made slide templates. (Hint: you can also add or delete text, or images, to the template.) You can include questions about the content of each slide and ask students to respond in a variety of ways: typing in a text or number response, dragging and dropping, choosing from multiple answers, or sketching an answer.
By creating online lessons in Pear Deck, teachers can assess students’ understanding with different types of questions, such as multiple choice.
You can view your lesson in Teacher or Student mode. In Student Mode, you can go through the lesson as a student, answer the questions, and then use this as your answer key. In Teacher Mode, you can see which students are answering which slides. (Hint: you can have two browser tabs open and be logged in as a student and a teacher.)
We recommend turning on an excellent feature called “Student-Paced Mode,” which allows students to go through the lesson at their own pace. You can also publish Pear Deck Takeaways—a record of each student’s work. You can leave comments in the document for students to review and respond to, as well as share it with parents and caregivers so they have an idea of how their child is doing. To discover more about how to use Pear Deck for online learning, visit Resources for Distance Learning on Pear Deck’s website.
Students Can Get Creative with WeVideo
WeVideo is an online video editor that millions of students are using around the world. The Education platform enables them to creatively communicate their ideas using the editor’s massive library of templates, images, audio and video clips, backgrounds, and sound effects. They can write text and captions, import files, and record voice overs for their videos. The interface is easy-to-use and there are several tutorials to help students get started.
Students can use WeVideo’s huge library of templates, images, audio and video clips, backgrounds, and sound effects to make engaging online presentations.
Below are short examples of how students—and teachers—are using WeVideo:
Book Talks: A teacher and two students discuss a picture book—and the teacher hilariously disappears into the story.
Science Videos: A student created this informative video about Earth’s Connected Ecosystems using video clips, text, photos, and music.
Historical Documentaries: To explain their understanding of an historical event, a student uses voice-over as she writes text and draws sketches on a whiteboard. (Humour included!)
You can also encourage students to use WeVideo to create podcasts, a video scavenger hunt, game shows, and stop motion/Claymation. To show your students that you’re embracing the medium, too, you may want to try creating and sharing your traditional learning resources in WeVideo. WeVideo has put together ideas on how you can incorporate the following lesson elements into your class’s online learning: Learning Objectives, Prior Knowledge, Academic Vocabulary, Questioning, Modeling, Closure, Assessment, and Independent Practice.
. . . . .
Offering online learning support so students can learn at home is a new concept for most teachers, students, and parents/guardians. We understand that it may seem overwhelming. We are here to help support you. You can do this!
We want to thank educators everywhere for helping to ease students into learning at home as they embark on this new online learning journey during this unprecedented time in history. Stay home and stay safe.
REFERENCES
Collie, Meghan.
“Coronavirus: Parents don’t have to be teachers, but learning doesn’t have to stop.” Global News, March 18, 2020. https://globalnews.ca/news/6694643/coronavirus-homeschool-kids/
Lang-Raad, Dr. Nathan.
“Learning resources to make online learning successful.” WeVideo Blog, March 11, 2020. https://www.wevideo.com/blog/for-schools/learning-resources-to-make-online-learning-successful