Lifesaving Tips for Managing Online Teaching

I don't know about any of you, but I think school from home is harder than school from school, even if I can wear pajama bottoms all day. 

After doing this for almost two weeks, I'm finding a rhythm and here are a few things that are saving my bacon: 

1. Get off screen 

I'm almost 50 and I've worn bifocals for nearly a decade. All this screen time is leaving me blurry by late afternoon, even with blue light protection built in to my specs. 

During my non-live teaching/having meeting moments, I do my best to get off screen for a while--handling any business I can on paper, or at least taking a moment to set my visual focus on something further away and not backlit. 

I'm giving up most of my screen-related free time hobbies, too--going back to reading paper books instead of Kindle, playing fewer video games and watching almost no TV. It's hard, giving those things up, but it's also hard, not being able to see. 

2. Tab Snooze

Tab Snooze is a fabulous chrome extension that lets you set tabs to reopen on a schedule. I've got SO MANY documents to reference for various kinds of support and documentation right now that if I leave the tabs open, it will look like the flags of the world printed in miniature. 

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I combine this with OneTab, another chrome extension that will let me group a set of tabs and have them open together. I use this for my "morning set"--the stuff I need first thing when I log in. 

3. Stretch

Though I've done my best to set up an ergonomic environment at home, I am feeling the sedentary desk-bound nature of this work in my neck and back, and sometimes my hips. So, I've turned to my YouTube friend Adriene for short yoga sessions (5-10 minutes that I can fit between meetings and live classes) that focus on whatever part of me is complaining. 

Here's one I especially loved because it's cute and charming as well as helpful: 

4. Get a second screen

Especially if you are teaching live, synchronous classes on zoom or some other video based system, a second screen makes it possible to see the chat window, participants list, and video of the participants on one screen, while sharing your screen for content on the other. 

It makes all the difference to interactivity if you can access ALL the tools at the same time and my little laptop screen can't handle that load. I also love it when I need to look at information on one document and use it on another one, so I can avoid clicking between tabs sixty-gazillion time to complete a single task. 

(plus it helps a little with the vision thing since you can set the two screens at different distances from your face, giving yourself a little variety of focal point). 

5. Reach out to colleagues

Teachers are helpful and resourceful people. It's *always* worth reaching out to your colleagues, within your school, district, county, or even internationally through social media and find out how others deal with whatever is giving you trouble. It may feel like we're all in this alone right now, but in some ways, we're more together than we ever have been before because our options have become more limited. 

6. Don't be afraid to go old school

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I'm doing things on paper that I haven't done on paper in decades (like taking roll, or keeping a to do list), just because it's easier to take something off screen and I can jot down notes without figuring out which tab on which screen has the thing I'm looking for just then. Not everything is better done with the newest, flashiest tech tool you can find. 

Even though I'm at home, I can still call parents and families. If you don't want to let your home phone number/cell phone out of the bag, set up a google voice. A voice on the other end of a phone call can be an arrow through the fog of confusion sometimes. 

I've even sent some of my students physical mail--especially those with limited internet access. Just making sure they know I'm thinking of them and want to help is a step towards making it better. 

So there's my list. What's saving your bacon? Got any tips to share for teaching/learning from home? I'd love to see them in the comments. 

Things I Learned Today: Starting the Schoolyear digitally

 1. It's easier with the students I already know than with new ones. 

Because I am the entire Spanish department at my school, I often get to teach kids again, so among my 8th grade students, for example, only four of thirty-nine are people who have never studied Spanish with me before. The rest have taken either my sixth or seventh grade classes. 

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That made this first day SO MUCH EASIER because I already have a relationship with these students. We have established a bit of trust, so they are less nervous about messing up in front of me or suffering consequences from misunderstandings. 

Plus, I already know (at least somewhat) what I can expect from them. Greeting them today was like going to a family reunion. I missed them so much and it was grand to see them again!

My sixth graders, on the other hand, are new to me, new to our school, new to middle school, new to online learning, and probably new in other ways I'm not thinking of right now. 

They were practically vibrating with anxiety. We'll be working our way through that before we can start worrying about whether or not they are learning any Spanish. 

2. Having more than one computer screen REALLY helps with teaching in Zoom. 

I was able to set up pop out windows on one screen that allowed me to see my students, the chat window, and the participant box with controls and reaction tools, while sharing information from my other screen, or emailing links, looking up information, etc. 

I had a two-screen set up in my classroom, which was handy, but from home, when teaching via video? I'd say it's more than handy--it's a lifesaver!

3. It's MUCH harder to judge engagement during live lessons online. 

I could keep up with questions, but silent kids were blank slates. They *might* have been having internet issues, distractions, or other problems and I don't know for sure. Just another reminder how important "soft skills" (which we're now calling SEL: Social and Emotional Learning) truly are. Passivity won't fly in an online teaching environment. 

I have a *second* first day of school today, since this schedule has me teaching half my students on a Monday/Wednesday schedule and half on a Tuesday/Thursday one. Wish me luck!

Still building the plane after it takes off…

School is always a stressful endeavor. It's high pressure-high stakes work, with huge public scrutiny, a paltry budget, and a ridiculous per-person workload. Luckily, it's also meaningful, personally enriching, and powerful, as well as never-ever boring. 

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Those of us who manage to last long enough to be old-timers in education learn to manage the stress somehow. Some of us in healthy ways, some of us less so. 

But this year is a whole new level. 

Switching gears last March and going to a school-from-home model 3/4 of the way through the school year was difficult. 

But, we knew it would only be for ten weeks at most (because that's how many weeks there were left in the school year). We had already built procedures, trust, and relationships with our students. 

In my district, we were extra-fortunate because we were already a one-to-one district, providing laptops for student use. Many of us already taught hybrid classes, meshing the best of in-person and virtual environments to give our students a variety of paths to learning and to proving they had done so. 

But, starting the school year from home? Ouch. That's a horse of a different color, and I don't think I like this color. 

This year, might as well just be called the year of uncertainty. We don't know how long we'll be teaching this way…so we don't know how much energy it is reasonable to invest in learning new schools that might not be needed in just a few more weeks, if everyone's hopes come to fruition and we are safe to return to an in-person model after the first nine weeks. There's still an awful lot we don't have a consensus on, too, when it comes to balancing equity and fairness with standards and accountability. 

My district has made some teacher-positive and supportive choices. They've bought technology to support us in this work, and bought *other* technology when what we ordered failed to come in time so we had some stop-gap measures. 

They found online courses and resources for us, at least those who were willing to work for free (only one course came with any offer of compensation for the additional work hours). They bought some new programs and subscribed to new services that look like they are really going to be helpful.

I can see that they are trying to give us what we need to create a positive and valuable learning experience for our children. 

Unfortunately, all those new resources were not available until two days ago--not enough time to even learn what they can do, let alone make high-level use of them. The learning curve is real, yo! And not everyone could spare the time in June and July for extra training--a lot of us were working second jobs or handling all the responsibilities that we struggle to handle during the school year. So, there's a lot of good stuff there, but I'm worried that by the time I figure out what's there and how best to make use of it, it'll be too little, too late. 

So, I'm left with a half-built plane on the tarmac, knowing that when we take off on Monday we are likely to crash because we only have one wing. There wasn't time to build both. 

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The main thing we needed was time--more than any of those other things. PAID time devoted to developing materials, procedures, plans, and back-up plans rather than struggling to learn new software and never-before-seen systems. 

I was luckier than some of my colleagues. I had eight unscheduled hours across three teacher workdays. Was it enough to prepare a digital environment for 107 students in three different courses, including gathering information on their IEPs, 504s, medical plans, and other accommodations? 

Nope. Not even close. At the close of my work day today, I was ready to teach one class on Monday and hadn't gathered any background information for ANY of my students. 

The other two classes are still in a messy, half-prepared status that will require me to give up at least one entire day of my weekend and start school on Monday under-rested and, frankly, grumpy because away-from-school time is essential to maintaining equilibrium and being able to do this job reliably. 

Dang I miss it when teacher workdays consisted of time for teachers to work: as in prepare to teach, not learn new things. I was handed a lot to prepare, and not even a third of time it would take to prepare it. 

Luckily I'm a miracle worker. Let's hope it doesn't kill me.