Online Learning, Take Me Home, Back to a Classroom, Where I Belong…

Recollections of Online Teaching
(Week 2: Post 2)

Integrating Tools for Online and Blended Learning

Jacquie, Mike, Fahmida, and Josie presented Distanced Learning Tools and Online Learning, and discussed tools such as Microsoft 365, Scholantis, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, and mentioned a few other LMS that they had researched more about the tools I used for online learning in my Grade 6/7 classroom. They also talked quite extensively about anti-oppressive education, epistemology, and ontology, and provided a few readings to support this: Ontological and Epistemological Foundations of Qualitative Research, A guide to ontology, epistemology, and philosophical perspectives for interdisciplinary researchers, and Anti-oppressive pedagogies in online learning: a critical review.

woman working retouching photo on laptop at convenient workplace
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Although I feel pretty comfortable with using Google Workspace for Education, I was limited to some of the things that I could do because many of my students shared one piece of technology amongst the whole family, some struggled to find internet access, and some struggled with the basics of technology, even though we had practiced it for months, even though I had prepared how-to step-by-step documents with both pictures and words.

However, we did the best that we could, and we tried to incorporate as many engaging things as possible. Besides using Google Classroom, some of the tools we used were:

  • Google: Docs, Slides, Chat, Hangout, Classroom, etc.
  • Microsoft: Word, PowerPoint,
  • PDF Editor
  • Flipgrid
  • Jamboard
  • Padlet
  • Wakelet
  • Mentimeter
  • Kahoot
  • Videos
  • Typing Club
  • Xtramath
  • Canva
  • Remind

For the purpose of keeping this blog post relatively short(er) than usual, or try to at least, in no specific order, I will go over a few of them that I find to be the most relevant or useful in my teaching practice, and why I think so.

  • Typing Club: for those that are unfamiliar, Typing Club is an online program that teaches a person how to type by practice, games, and even tests. Teachers can watch the progress of each student, and see where they are at, assign tests or assignments and overall check-in on their progress. I had never used it before this year, and I know in my experience I loved All the Right Type (even though I know a lot of people didn’t) and do think that in today’s world typing is an important skill to have. To my surprise, most of my students loved the program and were so driven to increase their accuracy and overall speed.
  • Remind: this was a useful tool to connect with students and parents/guardians without having to go through email, and to actually get a hold of them when I needed to. It was also a great tool to send reminders when we were meeting, and what students needed to complete, etc. I did use this in my classroom before going online, and many of the students really enjoyed it. Although we are moving to EDSBY in the fall, this technology will probably replace the need to use Remind.
  • Flipgrid: the students loved using Flipgrid to make videos, responses and to engage with the classroom in a different way. They loved when the teachers would make a video asking the questions and make a response to those questions. Students felt empowered and able to share their voice in a different way. I like how there are different options of length of time, and whether or not responses are shared, etc. Although it seems like a simple tool, it was amazing to see how the kiddos used it in their learning and how they demonstrated their understandings.
crop faceless person browsing laptop and smartphone in light room
Photo by Teona Swift on Pexels.com
  • Padlet: like Jambaord, padlet was a good tool to use for students to share answers and to brainstorm. To me, this is a technological version of the old brainstorm using the whiteboard, however, students can share and contribute more fully than one person writing answers on the board.
    
  • Google Workspace for Education: from using Google as an LMS (Google Classroom), meeting with my students (Meet-Up), creating collaborative documents (Slides/Docs), brainstorming (Jamboard), and communication (Chat, Hangout, Gmail), I used Google a ton. It was definitely my go-to, and most of the students were comfortable using these applications.
    
  • Microsoft 365: similarly to Google Workspace for Education, I used Microsoft a ton to create documents on Word and PowerPoint, as well as videos, presentations, etc. Although most students did not have access to Microsoft on their computers, I used it a lot and turned the documents into PDFs so that they were able to open and read them at home.

Here’s my advice as a tech coach: Stop. Trying. All. The. Things. And if anyone makes you feel otherwise, stop taking advice from them. Focus on pedagogy and the student experience. The tools are going to change tomorrow. Good pedagogy won’t.

Tyler Rablin

Impacts of Educational & Teaching Tools on Learning Experiences

young lady typing on keyboard of laptop in living room
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While scrolling through Twitter for my last class, I came across this tweet and realized that it was something I was always thinking about but never wanted to put into words out of a fear of being inadequate or not trying to expand my horizons, or whatever it the case may be. I think that at the forefront of using educational technology and teaching tools, we need to ask ourselves what is the purpose of it? Who is benefiting from it? What do I want the outcome of this to be? Because if we just start to implement a bunch of different tools to check off the boxes and to make some sort of a façade, then who are we really failing? Not only ourselves, but more importantly, the kiddos we teach every day. Therefore, focusing on the outcomes we want students to potentially have is important.

I do think that the tools we use impact both teacher’s and students learning alike. Although, I do think that the students directly feed off of a teacher’s attitude towards something, as well as how they introduce the tools and support them with their kiddos. For example, if a teacher introduced Jamboard and just tells the students to go to the website and do the question, there of course will be some that can do that and figure it out right away. But there will also be some that play around and never figure it out or some that do not even attempt it. But if a teacher models how to use the tool with the whole group, checks in individually, posts some of their own ideas, and is overall excited or seemingly passionate about what they are teaching, then students’ buy in will be greater, and the learning experiences will be richer. Too often we assume that just because young people are seemingly using technology all of the time, doesn’t mean that they have ever been taught how to properly use it either.

My Experience of Online Learning

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Photo by Sarah Chai on Pexels.com

To be honest, unlike many of my colleagues, I was excited to embark on a new journey of online learning for several different reasons. The very fact that I was limiting my exposure to that many different people, took a lot of stress off of my shoulders. Because I had a case in my classroom in November, I felt as if I had a little bit of a head start with knowing how to structure my class, knew what was a success or a total failure, and was able to do a little bit more preplanning and preparation with the students. I was also able to set students up with Chromebooks to take home to help get students one step closer to engagement and participation (whatever that may have looked like for them).

Although there were a ton of educational technology and teaching tools that I wanted to incorporate into my teaching, I knew that my students would be overwhelmed with all of the different things. Therefore, I stuck to some of the basics that I discussed earlier in this blog post so that students could feel comfortable. Once students were comfortable, I would add something else to the mix for them to try. To be honest, the school I am presently at is a fringe school, between being middle class and community. Therefore, at times I have to say I was less focused on how many tools the students were using and were just happy to see their faces appear and to hear how they were doing. Even though I feel adequate with my ed-tech skills, and definitely could have incorporated way more than I did, I know that the kiddos that had one foot through the gap may have slipped and fallen through completely.

top view of people at the meeting
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This brings me to some of makes me recall some of the advantages and disadvantages of online learning that the second group discussed, and was supported by their readings: Pedagogical Considerations of E-Learning in Education for Development in the Face of COVID-19, and in Distance Education in the United States: From Correspondence Course to the Internet. Some advantages that were outline were: accessibility, inclusivity, collaboration, flexibility, and fluidity, as well as taking on more of an active learner role in one’s learning. However, to every advantage, there is always a disadvantage, and some that they outlined were: accessibility, accountability, team building, sense of communities, building relationships, etc. Although I did find myself feeling some of the disadvantages to online learning, primarily the lack of relationship building and the ability to check in on the kiddos, I mainly felt that there were a lot of advantages. Maybe it was mostly because of the global pandemic and putting my personal safety first, or the fact that I knew it was short-term that made me feel like the other advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

To be honest, I enjoyed the online aspect of teaching and would like a more blended approach at times, however, I really did miss the social interactions, the sense of community and belonging, as well as my ability to check in on my students and colleagues to see how everyone was doing. I also appreciated how our admin team was very relaxed about how we taught online and trusted our judgment, although I can see how some people would struggle with this freedom and may have wanted more concrete expectations. However, I appreciated it because I was able to incorporate tools that I had been using in my last class and previous tools, and I wasn’t confined to someone else’s limitations.  

Optional Feedback and Questions

After commenting on many posts, sometimes I like the idea of having some questions to answer rather than a general comment at times. If you want to write a general comment, by all means, I welcome that! Although if you’d like to answer one question (or as many questions as you want) below, that’s great too! Please do not feel obligated to answer them all.

table with various images and scissors near potted houseplants
Photo by George Milton on Pexels.com
  1. What are your go-to educational technology or teaching tools?
  2. What educational technology or teaching tools have you come across that you want to try, but haven’t yet?
  3. Name one time you integrated educational technology or teaching tools as it was either a total strike out, or a hit out of the park.
  4. If you could give some advice to an educator beginning to adopt educational technology tools into their practices, what would it be?

6 thoughts on “Online Learning, Take Me Home, Back to a Classroom, Where I Belong…

  1. Kelly, I love how you put together your blogs and as an added bonus they are so aesthetically pleasing! Your post includes a quote by an ed. coach that encourages teachers to stop trying all the things and to focus on pedagogy. At the beginning of remote learning, I think that focusing on what they knew and were familiar with was challenging for many educators, they just wanted to try and replicate the classroom instruction as best they could for their students. I eventually learned that less is more during remote learning but it took some time. Each educator has a unique pedagogy that shapes their instructional decisions and actions as they interact with students. What works for one teacher may not work for another.

    To answer one of your questions, what is one technology strikeout that I have experienced? One teaching tool that I recently trialed was Blooket. In all fairness it is a site I just experimented with in late June, it was not used for assessment purposes, just for “fun.” It is an even more gamified version of Kahoot! Students enjoyed using it, more so because of the newness rather than the content. I consider it a failure due to the fact that the students were more interested in the game side and were more focused on getting through the questions (correct or incorrect) just to get back to gaming. Looking forward to your future posts!

    1. Hey Janelle, thanks so much for stopping in. Less definitely was more during online learning, and treating it like a regular day didn’t work for my kiddos either. What works for one teacher doesn’t necessarily work for another is so true. Even with mentorship, and support, sometimes using a tool just doesn’t work and that’s okay. I am glad to hear that you tried Blooket. The French teacher at our school used it with the kiddos during online learning and most of them really liked it. Again, not sure if they liked it to play the games or the actual learning component of it, but they continued to play it long after online learning came to a close. I guess you don’t know how effective something will be until you try it. So I guess even though you felt like it was a failure in a sense, it was something out of the box you tried and you put yourself outside of your box, so I can see that as a success as well. Keep up the great work!

  2. “Here’s my advice as a tech coach: Stop. Trying. All. The. Things. And if anyone makes you feel otherwise, stop taking advice from them. Focus on pedagogy and the student experience. The tools are going to change tomorrow. Good pedagogy won’t.” I so appreciate this quote, Kelly! If I could have given myself one piece of advice at the beginning of the pandemic, it would have been this. I thought that to engage kids online I had to use a bunch of new tools and apps, and I spent so much time scouring the internet and educational message boards, trying to see what the best options were. After a few attempts using new ed tech tools, I realized that my tech fatigue was real and so was my students. They didn’t want to learn another new tech platform — they wanted consistency, especially in this uncharted and suddenly scary world. My second go at remote teaching – this school year, as opposed to last year – went much better. I was much more thoughtful and deliberate with my choices, and made sure that the tool trule enhanced the learning. Of course, it probably helped that students were a lot more familiar with all the platforms as well, and the very notion of online learning.

    1. Doesn’t that seem crazy, Janeen? I mean, how much time a lot of us spent on the internet searching for new tools or more interesting ways to enhance our lessons and engage students, all to realize that they didn’t want new things to have to learn on their own, but they wanted consistency and structure? It makes sense, but at the beginning of the pandemic I don’t think in a million years I would have ever thought that would have been the case. I am glad to hear that the second time around for online learning felt better for you, and you were able to find your groove. Also, at the beginning of the pandemic and online learning, it was definitely sink or swim for a lot of people and because it wasn’t mandatory, it was tricky to get some students and families to bite on it. Thanks so much for stopping in and sharing some of your experiences. I like to hear different experiences and perspectives!

  3. I’m going to go with #4.

    If I could give some advice to an educator beginning to adopt educational technology tools into their practices, I would tell them to pick something that works well for them and their students and to stick with it. I feel that sometimes teachers, new and old, have a “spray and pray” approach to ed tech tools– they try out a bunch with students. While this might be great as there’s a novelty in trying new things, it complicates the process for both student and teacher. The tech should makes things easier, not more difficult.

    1. This piece of advice is so great, Mike. All too often I think we try to dip our toes into too much water and don’t always realize that sometimes we fall in over our heads or lose our kiddos in the deep water. Tech should make things easier, and if it is making things a lot harder than they should be then it’s probably time to reevaluate. I like your “spray and pray” quote, it fits here so nicely. Thanks for popping in and leaving some advice.

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