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School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

bostonherald.com

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Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#121

Post by travisl12 »

My wife is a 3rd grade teacher in the Bay Area and to hear stories from the other side of the online classroom. She's perfectly internet savvy and there are a lot of online parent/teacher communication platforms that she uses. Normally, being a teacher is pretty damn stressful and the hours are looong. But this has taken a step into a new direction of anxiety and stress.

Adding to the list of things that a teacher already is responsible with doing is Tech Support. Because now parents are emailing her stupid questions that are easily google-able about Google Classroom.

* "How do I upload a picture?"

* "Can you email me the google classroom link again?"

* "What's the login for my kid? (omg this question)"

* "Where's the thing to click on? (fuuuuuuu.....)"

The district is now starting to have a minimum of 8 mandatory teaching sessions to parents on how these things work. EIGHT.

We cannot translate online classrooms 1:1 with the real thing. I wish the district would take a breath and approach this with a little bit more understanding that this is a whole new ballgame. I know parents need their kids to be somewhat occupied during the day (I have 2 kids under 4 so I get it), but overall it's not very pleasant for teachers.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#122

Post by danans »

bitlax wrote: post #15
thehoff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only? Don't say the parents have to organize this (see below for my current experience). And for those of us with really young kids, this work from home may be great an all, but its really hard to work and tend to a very young one's education/attention.

Public schools are generally pretty terrible at socialization. The students interact mostly only with kids of their same exact age. Bullying and violence are ubiquitous. Sure, you learn how to conduct yourself in that particular environment, but it's unlike any other environment you'll see in your adult life outside of a prison.

The social environment of any school, public or private, is a function of the prevailing norms and behaviors of the community it serves. Bullying and violence are nothing specific to public schools. Many private schools have similar issues, and many public schools have few of those issues. It isn't as simple as you would like to portray it.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#123

Post by _anastasia »

My district had already given all high school students Chromebooks; when they announced the closures they provided all students (K-12) with the same. For families without internet access, hotspots were acquired and distributed. It was great! Having done all this, though, they forbade the instruction of any new content and closed the grading system.

Teachers still do videoconferences via Google Meet and/or Zoom, but it's mostly for social interaction rather than teaching.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#124

Post by unnouinceput »

Quote: "“They were engaged. They were happy to see each other,” she said, and some students expressed a feeling they never thought they’d have: “They miss being in school.”"

Well, my kids are on the opposite spectrum of this feeling. For them, going to school is a drag. Perhaps I made too good of an environment at home, maybe I should be more drastic, maybe.....nah, just kidding, I love giving them a real home, not just a roof against rain.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#125

Post by test6554 »

irrational wrote: post #8

In my school district they still haven't figured out how to proceed. The problem is there are a lot of low income families that they know don't have internet access or a computer. They can give those kids a chromebook, but that isn't very helpful with no internet access. Legally (and morally) they can't move ahead with online school if a big chunk of the students are left out. On the other hand, I was talking yesterd…

“Too bad so sad for poor kids”

C’est la vie.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#126

Post by kedean »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #68
kedean wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, I was talking yesterday with a family member in another state where they have been doing online school almost since the first day It's highly likely they aren't supposed to doing that. A lot of school districts around me decided to go their own way when the state didn't give specific directions after shutting every school down, mainly really rural ones interestingly enough. They are now having to…

> there were a number of individual teachers who tried to immediately start doing remote instruction with their kids and were quickly reprimanded by their district as soon as they were found out. That sounds very odd.

Odd that they would try to skip straight to remote instruction, or odd that they would be reprimanded for it?

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#127

Post by asdff »

Noos wrote: post #96
Digory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that if we're in this boat by fall, school district dollars will be spent paying for wireless hotspots or in-home connections. Until then, we'll see band-aids. I've seen one school district parking busses with wi-fi repeaters near apartment complexes, or near student houses.

if we are in this by fall, it will be moot because people will run out of money to pay for their internet. Not many people can stay out of work for 4+ months.

People are going to be behind rent sooner than that.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#128

Post by dragonsky »

762236 wrote: post #27

My 9th-grade daughter so far prefers this remote learning, as it makes efficient use of her time, and so gives her a lot more free time. At school, lots of kids don't want to focus (this is in the middle of Silicon Valley and helicopter parents), and slow down the class. Now she is away from that stress, and is a lot happier, despite her being an extrovert.

My daughter (also grade 9) has been doing online distance learning since grade 5. She often expresses how much she enjoys not having to deal with all the time wasted on discipline issues.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#129

Post by JetSpiegel »

skapadia wrote: post #89
tootie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling governments are going to relax restrictions given the enormous economic costs we're absorbing right now. It may be medically advisable to keep this up for like 18 months, but there's a cost to plunging the world into a global depression that could outweigh the cost of treating a rampant virus. At some point we're going to have to declare the curve to be sufficiently flattened and ride it out until a…

The cost to plunging the world into a global depression is far worse than this virus will ever be.

Worse than killing millions? What's the economic impact of that?
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