My school district started this school year with remote learning. We've now completed one month and here's what I learned and what I used for lessons.
A little background, I am a media specialist that is on the specials schedule. I teach 6 live lessons everyday of the week and actually teach 7 classes on Friday. Our county provided K-2 with ipads and 3-5 with chromebooks. My district uses Google Meet to stream live lessons from 7:40-1:40 each day (in elementary).
One of the main things I quickly learned was that I need to be very consistent and routine with my lessons. Instead of using a new website/app each week just pick a couple to use every week.
This will help especially with K-2 that need to learn how to use that app or website. So the main website that I taught K-2 to use was whiteboad.fi. This is website that I was able to post a link in the chat box and then they clicked on the link to use it. One thing to keep in mind is you have to teach students what and where a chat box is. I quickly drew a picture on a scrap of paper I had at my house and started to hold up that visual while directing them to the chat box.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, I started out the first week by showing each class a google slide and talking about expectations while on google meet. This is basically what I do the first week while in the media center, we talk about expectations while in the media center.
For K-2 my lessons each week were made up of me reading a picture book aloud, have students use whiteboard.fi to draw the main character from the story and any other details. I'd then have my awesome and amazing paraprofessional read an Elephant and Piggie book my Mo Willems. If we still had time, I put a link in the chat box to starfall.com where students could practice letters, letter sounds, and phonics skills for the remainder of our time together.
The books I read each week were:
Week 1: The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by: Ken Geist and Julia Gorton
Week 2: The Good Egg by: Jory John and Pete Oswald
Week 3: The Pout Pout Fish by: Deborah Diesen
Week 4: Gaston by: Kelly DiPucchio
For 3-5, I spent a lot of time during the first two weeks of school discussing how to check books out using Sora. I presented about how to do it. I put a tutorial video into Google Classroom for students to refer back to if they had questions later on and I answered any questions they had while checking books out. I also made a pretty extensive list of some of their favorite books in the media center that we also have on Sora for them to look for and check out. I also immediately bought additional copies of some of their very favorite titles including a couple of copies of the new Dog Many book that was just released at the beginning of September. I'm pretty sure I could buy 20 copies of this book and it would just constantly stay checked out. I know my patrons and their interests!
For the last two weeks I've started class by having students check books out on Sora and read that book or read a book from home for the first 20 minutes of class and then for the last 20 minutes I introduced a Virtual Makerspace option for them to explore.
One week I specifically pointed out that they could use Minecraft Coding or code.org during this time if that's the one they wanted to explore. I demonstrated how the website works before having them explore it themselves.
Last week, I pointed out that another good coding site is Bitsbox on code.org. This website simulates what it would be like to program an app. I again took about 5-7min to demonstrate how this site works before letting them loose to explore it on their own. I find that if you demonstrate first it alleviates most questions or problems that will naturally occur if you don't explain how it works first.
Teacher humor for the first week of remote learning:
Lots and lots of things will happen during remote learning that you did not expect and it is best to just laugh to yourself and keep it moving. For example, you may want to add to the norms that students don't need to take their device with them into the restroom at any point. Also, mention that it is best to wear pants even if you think the teacher will only be able to see you from the waist up. Students often forget that their cameras are on and yeah...
I also found out that if you end up having students wait a second while you take attendance or something else you will often end up with students suddenly sharing their animals/pets with classmates or even their loose and silver teeth with one another. HA!
Lastly, I learned that students can be pretty honest in the chat box and sometimes you just have to shake your head when they come in 32 minutes late and post this...
