Teaching Through Coronavirus: What I learned – Week 1

In the face of  school closures and the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems we all had to become remote teaching experts overnight. And, even though it is obviously NOT POSSIBLE, and even though some of us will feel helpless or overwhelmed, we need to take a baby-steps approach and start learning how to teach remotely and how to organise our online classes. 

Think in "chunks"

Look at the material and decide which parts can be taught online, which can be flipped and which can be done independently by students as homework. 

Think "paperless"

Decide which resources you would like to share with your class and keep them separately. Choose a cloud and share it with your students but don’t store any sensitive documents there. Google Drive is a very generous option – 15GB. If you didn’t have time to set up a cloud, organise your resources on platform like padlet. 

Choose the tools

To record the screen

My number 1 is Loom. The founders of the program decided to go the extra mile to make the product accessible to as many people as possible, and, from now on, Loom Pro is free for teachers and students at K-12 schools, universities, or educational institutions.

To run an online class live

My number 1 is Zoom. In a free version you can host a 40-minute meeting with 1 or up to 100 students. Apart from a standard option of screen sharing, you can record your class in mp4 and/or send files via chat. 

To edit pdf

My number 1 is pdf2go in which you can merge or split pdf, convert to and from pdf and improve pdf by changing size, deleting pages etc. There are other programs such as ilove pdf or small pdf but they limit the number of documents you are working on. 

To scan

My number 1 is Camscanner – an app I have on my android phone. To fight the global Coronavirus pandemic, CamScanner officially announced that the Premium account is now free for all educators and students “living on the planet”. Read more details about how to redeem Premium >>

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Written by 

ESOL teacher at Edinburgh College