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.