COVID-19: First Day of Online Teaching (Jess)
It finally arrived! Day one of online learning at home. I don't think any of us slept very well. Except maybe Jeremy because he's able to sleep through just about anything - lucky guy! Both Riley and I woke up at 4am unable to sleep because of nerves, excitement, and uncertainty. I chose to read until I couldn't stay awake and then went back to sleep for a short while before the alarm went off at 7am.
Today was a soft start. It was a check-in with advisory on Zoom. I loved seeing my students online. Some were hyper and talking nonstop while others were extremely quiet and sad. One student asked how much longer we had to do this. And it was only day one of online learning. I know he meant how much longer we had to be inside and quarantined because of the virus, but it made me sad.
The remainder of the day was spent creating documents, filming videos, uploading information, and answering emails and helping coworkers. I had been so nervous about creating videos because it's new. It's unfamiliar. I'd been working out in my mind how to teach concepts while continuing to keep the curriculum going, but wow - what a shift I've had to make.
I was able to teach myself how to create a screencast and once I figured that out I felt brilliant! I created four screencasts and decided to teach using this because students could see the document and me at the same time. They could follow along and I could lead them through the material more clearly than simply by myself on a video. Though I did that too - made a YouTube video where I taught new concepts and reviewed old concepts. Val, our maltipoo, wanted in on the action at one point and was tired of me speaking to the camera (on the phone which was on a tripod). He barked and then came over to me because he wanted to snuggle. Doesn't get much closer to reality than that! I rolled with it and introduced students to the dog because why pretend that life is completely perfect right now. It's truly real life! And it's always good for students to see us as real people. So I left it in.
I took a break after Riley's advisory Zoom meeting and my Zoom meeting, but before Julia's Zoom meeting. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Went out for a 2 mile run and then got ready to do more work.
Overall I learned so much today and I feel like I'm going to be an even better teacher as a result of having the time to learn all of these new tools. It's SO good for us to be forced out of our comfort areas and to grow as educators.
I had a ton of first times today. Brené Brown calls them FFTs (I'll refer to them as TFTs: Terrible First Times). We pull back from these because it's hard to be new at things. Really hard sometimes. But doing it and realizing that there was so much learned makes you even stronger. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to get stronger in many ways and while it's going to be hard I'm looking forward to continuing to see what is possible!
Today was a soft start. It was a check-in with advisory on Zoom. I loved seeing my students online. Some were hyper and talking nonstop while others were extremely quiet and sad. One student asked how much longer we had to do this. And it was only day one of online learning. I know he meant how much longer we had to be inside and quarantined because of the virus, but it made me sad.
The remainder of the day was spent creating documents, filming videos, uploading information, and answering emails and helping coworkers. I had been so nervous about creating videos because it's new. It's unfamiliar. I'd been working out in my mind how to teach concepts while continuing to keep the curriculum going, but wow - what a shift I've had to make.
I was able to teach myself how to create a screencast and once I figured that out I felt brilliant! I created four screencasts and decided to teach using this because students could see the document and me at the same time. They could follow along and I could lead them through the material more clearly than simply by myself on a video. Though I did that too - made a YouTube video where I taught new concepts and reviewed old concepts. Val, our maltipoo, wanted in on the action at one point and was tired of me speaking to the camera (on the phone which was on a tripod). He barked and then came over to me because he wanted to snuggle. Doesn't get much closer to reality than that! I rolled with it and introduced students to the dog because why pretend that life is completely perfect right now. It's truly real life! And it's always good for students to see us as real people. So I left it in.
I took a break after Riley's advisory Zoom meeting and my Zoom meeting, but before Julia's Zoom meeting. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Went out for a 2 mile run and then got ready to do more work.
Overall I learned so much today and I feel like I'm going to be an even better teacher as a result of having the time to learn all of these new tools. It's SO good for us to be forced out of our comfort areas and to grow as educators.
I had a ton of first times today. Brené Brown calls them FFTs (I'll refer to them as TFTs: Terrible First Times). We pull back from these because it's hard to be new at things. Really hard sometimes. But doing it and realizing that there was so much learned makes you even stronger. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to get stronger in many ways and while it's going to be hard I'm looking forward to continuing to see what is possible!
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