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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

#51

Post by markvdb »

makerofspoons wrote: post #7
Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

Will this help us to see the massive expenditures we make to move people to a classroom when they could easily see it via computer screen? Especially if we then ask students to just look at the chromebooks they are given by the school, seems wildly inefficient to continue the butt in seat model, especially with older students.

My mother is a first grade teacher. While many things like math, reading, spelling, etc. can be delivered remotely (and I've been really impressed at the speed at which she has digitized it all) there is a lot of crucial tactile and social learning that occurs at that age that we have no real substitute for yet.

I teach the classical guitar, in small groups of up to four students. I have them send me recordings, and I ask them for permission to share with the other students in their group. In that way, they're playing not only for themselves, but for the others they know. Keeps at least a little bit of the social motivation intact..

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#52

Post by ryandrake »

codingdave wrote: post #17

In my district, it is not ideal, yet it is better than I expected. The Junior high is sending out independent assignments where it makes sense - math, mostly, as there is existing online cirriculum with automated scoring. For English, they are reading books, then getting on a Zoom call with the whole class to discuss it. There are some ongoing Zoom calls to talk as a class. They are probably only covering half as muc…

Same here. I expected a chaotic uncoordinated scramble, but it turns out at least in our district, the teachers and school leadership are reasonably prepared. We got packets of assignments, hardcopies and E-mailed, and they managed to do a class-wide videoconference the first time with no visible technical screw-ups.

The biggest failure/bottleneck turns out to be my ability to make time to schedule homeschooling, due to needing to work normal office hours.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#53

Post by DoreenMichele »

I was director of community life for The TAG Project at one time. This grew out of me being a homeschooling parent.

My first website grew out of online interest in what I did to educate my kids. I'm on parenting website number three or four. It's called Raising Future Adults.

Without an audience and engagement, I'm at a loss as to how to develop it. If anyone wants to shoot me an email to pick my brains, maybe that will help jumpstart that project so people have one more resource from someone who has lived more or less under some degree of quarantine for decades and homeschooled, done remote work, etc.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#54

Post by eitally »

gnicholas wrote: post #31

A lot of schools are leaving parents almost entirely (or entirely) on their own. I run an edtech company, and we started offering free access to our reading software soon after shutdowns started two weeks ago. We have heard from a lot of teachers and administrators, but we've also heard from many parents who are trying to educate their kids with little to no support. Although it is more efficient for us to create acc…

This is a district level (or perhaps state level) decision. I live in San Jose and have two elementary age kids in the public school system. Like the top commenter noted, this district is hugely variable in terms of socio-economic demographics, and the district policy prevents them from starting any online system that doesn't work for all students. Being a fairly poor district, not all kids have computers at home, and the schools mostly don't issue devices, either. As a result, teachers who are trying to provide any sort of continuity are entirely on their own, and in violation of policy.

We've been seeing a lot of Zoom + Classdojo + Google Classroom ... and for the younger kids, things like Achieve 3000, multiplication.com, etc., that they were already using in school.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#55

Post by ryanmarsh »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #18
ryanmarsh wrote: post #12

I can't wait until the kids all realize why the adults prefer to WFH. When this is all over they're going wonder why they have to go back to getting up early to catch the bus to spend all day sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs and being told to be quiet and stay off their phone. My oldest daughter just graduated from an online high school. We get it. Now the rest of the country is going to get it.

Do you have recommended resources or advice with the online high school? For some of us in states that cannot legally move forward with instruction, it might be an option to apply for an online high school.

We went with Northstar Academy: https://www.northstar-academy.org/

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#56

Post by yardie »

Our son went from boatschooling to regular school so is pretty well versed in remote and online learning. Part of the problem is he enjoys the social interaction that he could only get from meeting other kids (majority of cruisers are much older and retired). He's a lot more nimble about remote learning than I give him credit for.

He's taking it pretty well has a lot of experience in offline and online remote learning. He's a teenager now and I'm watching eat everything in the fridge. When my mom used to joke about needing to put a lock on the refrigerator, now I get it!

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#57

Post by visarga »

thehoff wrote: post #4
Dumblydorr wrote: post #2

Will this help us to see the massive expenditures we make to move people to a classroom when they could easily see it via computer screen? Especially if we then ask students to just look at the chromebooks they are given by the school, seems wildly inefficient to continue the butt in seat model, especially with older students.

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.

> How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only?

A combination of online activities and irl could work.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#58

Post by mattbeckman »

A few months before COVID-19 broke out, I started working with the founder of a platform called eTAP, which the founder first build about 20 years ago. We haven't begun the platform redesign yet, but it is fairly thorough platform for K-12 students who can benefit from an online supplement for math, science, language arts, and social studies. Parents can monitor progress, but don't need to be involved in lesson plans etc. as it's essentially ready to go.

https://www.eHomeschool.org

The free trial can be extended as long as necessary. Just message us.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#59

Post by bb611 »

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…

Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) is a federally recognized civil right, states and districts can't opt out of it.

Unfortunately it takes lawsuits to resolve these kinds of disparities, but there is no legal basis to proceed without making appropriate accommodations for students in low income families.

Re: School districts take unplanned plunge into online learning

#60

Post by donw »

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…

I’m going to expose my ignorance here, but in 2020, how many low-income families are there without internet?

Also, would it the solve not just be to provide loaner 4G access points to those families?

The US is one of the top per-student global spenders on K-12 education, so the money is there.

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