Insights on digital teaching & learning
When we think about our digital teaching and learning, shall we focus our learning on those digital tools that we have used or have learned to use, or shall we rather consider how those tools have helped us boost our students' learning process, and our teaching practices?
From Meet to ZOOM
As soon as this pandemic started, many teachers all over the world had to adapt to the new virtual world. In my case, as a GLC educator using Google, the first platform we used was Meet Hangouts. Yet, as the first days passed by, some of us started using other platforms. As I was used to using ZOOM for my online meeting with the co-writers of the book we are writing, I thought I could give it a try. Besides, in some of my other hobbies, we also tried some other platforms. Honestly, the one I liked the most, and many of my colleagues too, was ZOOM. When I found out the different possibilities I could make use of, I became a fan of it.
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First, I could be wherever I wanted to thanks to the usage of virtual backgrounds! When I learned about this feature, I started to think how I could use that in the ESL virtual classes. What if... I invited my students to attend to class in a different English-speaking city and country every day? We could free our imagination, and do what we couldn't do: to travel! Since at that moment we were all lockdown and confined to the 4 walls of our flats, apartments and houses... why not flying for free and in the blink of an eye everywhere we liked and learned something else about other cultures and the world? Could that work to create a more relaxed atmosphere in that excepcional situation we had just started to live...? Could that be useful to release tensions, stress, anxieties that we could feel under those particular circumstances? As a consequence, and taking advantage of the fact that my laptop allowed me to use virtual backgrounds successfully, I kept on using virtual backgrounds according to the purposes of the different classes. The students who wanted, and could, also joined me using their virtual backgrounds, and if not, some put on a T-shirt, a cap, or any other prop they could have from that country.
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Second, apart from virtual backgrounds, another discovery were the Breakout rooms! Amazing! I remember the day, at the very beginning of our remote learning experience, when we were in the virtual class and one of my students asked me if I knew about ZOOM Breakout rooms. What???!!! I had no idea... What was that? She told me that her mum used them and they seemed to be cool and practical... I was so curious that immediately after class I searched for information about them. The following day I arrived in the virtual class with all the eagerness to try them and see how they worked. And we did try... And from then onwards, we used them more and more successfully to work in pairs, to do teamwork for projects, to discuss in small groups, etc.
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Breakout rooms allowed students 7th grade students to have an autonomous space and privacy, without the teacher.... Some of them asked for help when they needed it, and in the meantime I could spend some time going here and there kind of supporting and checking up on them according to their needs. In this way, they students also had to be more responsible for their learning, organise themselves and become more independent. In that way, I could offer them opportunities to encourage their independence, one of the key expectations to promote a culture of thinking.
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"Independent learners are internally motivated to be reflective, resourceful, and effective as they strive to accomplish worthwhile endeavors when working in isolation or with others -even when challenges arise, they persevere"
(Rose-Duckworth and Ramer, 2008: 2)*
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Moreover, breakout rooms allowed me to support Katherine, one of the MS teachers, in her 3rd and 4th graders ESL classes. We started the virtual classes together with the whole group class; then, depending on the students' needs and support, I was redirected to a breakout room with only a few students so we could offer them a more personalised attention and support. At the end of class, I returned to the main room and Katherine and I spent some time sharing what we had observed from those students in their learning process, and how to implement actions that could enhance students' virtual learning experience. Honestly, remote learning offered us both the opportunity to work hand in hand and talk about students' progress every now and then.
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Finally, although for me and many of my colleagues ZOOM worked very well, I totally understand we all have had different experiences with different platforms. I am aware there have been some disruptive issues with this platform, this is why I would like to suggest you get prepared in advanced by managing the right setting and try following these recommendations that worked for me to be in a virtual secure and safe environment:
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Protect every meeting with a password.
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Enable the waiting room.
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Pay attention to the chat. You can disable the private chat, so that students can communicate with you, but they can't communicate with each other.
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Allow, or not, students to have pics in their profile, or just their names.
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Pay attention to screen sharing features. You can disable them all before the class. During the meeting, as the host, you can allow your students to share depending on the needs.
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Manage participants. Before the class, you can arrange how students may enter the classroom, with video and audio on/off. During the class, if a student is behaving disruptively, you can mute/unmute them, rename them, stop their video, or even remove them from the class. (Though I'd dare to say this may happen in excepcional occasions. So far I've never used that option. But it exists.)
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Raise hand option. It allows students to respect their turn to speak. Otherwise, well... It can be very funny when you have several students speaking at the same time, and have to decipher what they all are saying. As I like telling my students: 'I only have got two ears, how about you?'
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Allow reactions. They can be a way for all of us, students and teachers, to be engaged active listeners and participate in a visual way, as we are mute when someone else is speaking. I'd encourage you to use them. Otherwise, we may feel like being in the desert when no one is answering or making any comments...
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Lock your class. Once the class starts, you can decide whether you lock it, or not. If so, this is a way to prevent unwanted attendees from joining at any time during the class.
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Use a laptop or a PC for a better experience. Using a mobile phone only allows you to see 4 people on the screen. If your students are using them, just bear that in mind.
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In any case, I believe each of us has to choose the one that suits us best and we feel more comfortable with. However, what if we are consistent with the platform used so that students don't go crazy about learning in one platform or another? Let's make it easier for all of us.
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*Rose-Duckworth, R., and Ramer, K. (2008). Fostering learner independence: An essential guide for K-6 educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Mentimeter
As many of the digital tools shared in my website, Mentimeter isn't a new one at all. Yet, it has been developing its features and possibilities throughout time. It can be used for many different purposes, like creating word clouds, polls, posing questions, etc.
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In the example shown below, I particularly used it as a kind of virtual post-its wall chart. As simple and easy as that! The most interesting part came after that, when I asked to students to read everyone's comments, to make connections among them and to pose one or two questions that they could bring into a Socratic circle discussion*, a collaborative dialogical strategy.
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Something we need to bear in mind is that the code used can be changed every certain time. That's one of the things I had more trouble with at the beginning. When I learned about it, everything ran more smoothly.
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*To learn more, read: Copeland, M. (2005). Socratic Circles Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking. Portland, MN: Stenhouse Publishers.
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Speakers
Listeners
virtual
post-its
wall chart
Flipgrid
As we moved into the virtual classes, in GLC we even had the chance to attend an express training where we could learn other digital tools to use with our students. Flipgrid was one of those tools. Although I know it existed, honestly I had never used it before; so that was a learning opportunity to start making a proper usage of it with an educational and meaningful purpose.
Flipgrid allows us to create short videos which promote discussion among students about any topic, for free. Besides, feedback can be given both in a written format and by recording another video in response.
With 7th graders, I offered them the opportunity to make their thinking visible by using Flipgrid creating a video where they shared their ideas and thoughts on the film The Diary of Anne Frank (2009), connecting that historical moment with our exceptional situation, Covid-19 pandemic. And this was presented as the starting event for the project of the 3rd trimester, where even families were invited to 'Movie Night Weekend'.
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For that, they had to use the visible thinking routine 'See-Think-Wonder'. For me, using digital tools with a meaningful purpose is key, and in this case developing students' thinking to reflect on the historical moment we are living in connection to another point in history was a priority.
Padlet
Another digital tool, similar to Mentimeter in some functions, is Padlet. It allows to create collaborative online bulletin boards that can even be moved and allow for connections, comments, likes, etc. Apart from text, we can also add images and videoclips. We can use them for brainstorming or any other learning opportunities our creative minds can think of.
For instance, in the example below students were asked to share the choice book they wanted to read for the last trimester. Preferably, the idea was that they could choose a book on paper, rather than a digital one or an e-book. Bearing in mind the hours of screen exposure they were being exposed to in the virtual classes and beyond, their sight needed a rest!
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As they had the chance to share in a digital bulletin board, I thought... What if all the students from both groups classes A and B shared their choice books in the same digital board? In this way, they could see the books every single 7th grader was reading. Even more, what if they could pair with another student from the other group class to talk and discuss the book, to ask and answer questions about it and to write a collaborative summary? If we had been in face-to-face learning, having a common physical wall chart to share the titles of their choice books would have probably been a hassle... Yet, being in the digital world, my mind came up with that idea, opening up for more opportunities of interaction with other students from the same grade!
Powtoon
As the end of the school year was approaching all the JS and MS teachers had to apply Running records as part of this school year new reading programme 'Units of Study' to check their progress from the beginning of the school year to the end. The issue was that we had to do that on a one-on-one basis, what implied stop virtual classes and arrange a special schedule for a whole cycle (a period of 6 days). Therefore, we had to think about the type of work students could do independently and autonomously.
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Thus I came up with the idea of setting some missions to my 7th grade students, so that the tasks presented seemed to have another look, a more challenging and appealing one... This is why I decided to use Powtoon and create these amazing presentations. I knew that some content, which could seem boring or not so exciting for them, could be presented in some other way and, at the same time, maybe I succeeded in awakening their curiosity, if not for the reading strategies they had to put into practice... at least, for this digital tool. I've used Powtoon as a presentation tool as well as a collaborative tool with younger students in previous years, and this has always proved to be a winning option!
Google Classroom & much more...
Google Classroom / Docs / Slides / Calendar / Tasks / Form
One of the platforms that allowed the teachers in the late school years of MS share all the resources and set tasks from which create learning opportunities was Google Classroom. In here we could organise the class into topics and share whatever we could think of. Apart from sharing resources, we could set assignments, ask questions, share slides, give continuous feedback, etc.
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For instance, one of the topics that I created had to do with students' wellbeing. As I use to ask in class how they felt at very beginning of the class, and not all of them shared their feelings, I told them I would be sharing some resources for those who wanted to give it a chance. That ended up being more a personal choice, but at least they had the opportunity to watch a video, see an image, read a text, do a yoga class, etc. Sometimes I share some material that teachers also received in our MS journals every day. Sometimes I found out something related to a situation that could have happened in a previous class or related to a conversation with particular students...
One the cool things about Google Classroom is that we can share a class with other teachers. For instance, during the 7th grade project of that last trimester, the science teacher and I collaborated in sharing posts, setting goals and assignments and giving feedback to the same students for the common product: the Time Capsule. Honestly, that was a very enthralling experience as we could check students' progress and resolve questions in the chat.
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As we can also see students used Google Docs and we used Google Slides too to display information in a digital setting. The good thing is that we could use those tools to collaborate and share feedback, feed-forward and make comments immediately, as we work on it.
In terms of personal management, I used Google Calendar to organise myself and to keep evidence of where and when I was, as other members of the institution could have access to it and see my availability. Besides, I loved using my To-do list in the Google Task section. It allowed me to keep track of everything I had to do, esto establish priorities in terms of urgency, importance and the deadlines set.
Finally, I'd like to mention Google Form, a way to make some tasks easier for teachers. As we had to do a final exam for each grade, I thought about it as another learning evidence part of the students' learning process, together with many other learning evidences. Thus, I decided to use this tool to create the exam and give it the corresponding points and final grade. Although it may take some time for its preparation, it was worthy, as you can save a lot of time afterwards for its correction. Therefore, depending on what skills you want evaluate and how you want to do it, you can use this digital tool as a time saver!
Here we could see a few examples of what Google can offer to education. Yet, we all have to deal and make the most of the platform the schools we are working on offers us to use. Before, when I worked in the Maristes Institutions in Catalonia, we had to use Microsoft Office and all its tools. We teachers need to flexible, take all the lessons learned in a specific platform and be able to transfer them into a new platform. And if we don't know... Ask your colleagues and even your students!