Hybrid Learning: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

🧭This school year’s return to learning in a hybrid format launched our collective journey- our great Voyage of Discovery. What have we discovered so far? Some tools work better than others, nothing about our business is well-suited to a sudden remote shift and, while teaching is exhausting and depleting in a normal year, teachers have found another gear to meet the ever-evolving needs of their districts, schools, and learners. But to make it last... “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.“ Hoist the sails and batten down the hatches for a metaphor-rich adventure!

🛶⛵️ All in the Same Boat?

I’m not sure where I saw it first on Twitter, but my go-to quite for our circumstance is that “we’re not all in the same boat, but we are in the same storm.” Whoever hatched this idea nailed it. We have a shared storm but all with our unique strengths, skills, constraints, and tools at hand. Issues of equity and opportunity have been thrust into the light for districts to address in order to meet the needs of its learners. 

🎒Passenger List

We are eight to ten weeks into hybrid learning and so far it’s been been a personal and professional rollercoaster for every educator I know. We’ve shifted and cycled our thinking from impossible to imperfect and back again as expectations and objectives have continued to ever end as well.  We are in different boats to be sure, with or without experience, equipment, or even an adequate crew, but we all have a responsibility to our passengers. Our students still require our best, and their itinerary is clear. Our job is to deliver them safely. Unfortunately, it feels like so much progress and emphasis on things like SEL, executive functioning, and even innovative instructional strategies have been stowed away on this particular nation-wide journey. 

For the most part, students have been amazing (remember my world is elementary), but I do wonder about the aftermath. When all the dust settles, and we somehow return to something like normal, how much damage-control will be necessary, and how much re-learning and recovery will be required? Pediatricians and researchers are already finding anxiety and stress surrounding pandemic hybrid-learning, seeing more patients with symptoms related to these more than patients will the illness itself. Our learners’ mental health should be our largest recovery effort when we begin to emerge from distance/remote/hybrid instruction. 

📜Uncharted Waters

We’ve heard this one a lot! That’s true, but the idea of uncharted waters or an unfamiliar landscape shouldn’t be used as a cop-out. We have highly skilled colleagues who know their jobs in their bones, even if the methods for doing them aren’t quite evident. Clear and accessible navigation tools are needed now more than ever to calibrate, communicate and celebrate student learning. Leadership requires both recognizing and responding to this evolving situation with equally evolving and adapting instructional methods and structures, staffing, assessment measures, schedules, and budgets. 

🌌Guide by Stars

We need to rely on the constants of education, whether it’s professional networks, mentors, resources, or teammates.  Good teachers always find and follow their guides.  Look for the beacons to lighten the dark, chart the path, and have weathered storms before. Here’s a hint, they provide just as much support in fair weather and daylight as they will in the storm. 

🗺Check the Maps

The maps and curriculum guides may not have changed, but the ways we meet the guideposts have turned upside down.  Whether it’s a revision of benchmarks or shifting of those guideposts, flexibility and creativity in how we capture learning and assess progress will keep us all on course. 

🌅Light on the Horizon?

Not sure we’re there yet. I think it would be more accurate to say that the fog is clearing very gradually and educators are beginning to find their horizon and chart their course. 

Frustration and exhaustion have begun to mix with anticipation and inspiration.  As digital learning skills and strategies become more routine, teachers are adapting their practice and student learning experiences to our circumstance, and amazing things are happening deep in the fog of our current storm.   

I’ve observed teachers who may have been most fearful or even paralyzed by the overnight overhaul developing or returning to routines and familiar landmarks that have always decorated the landscape of the school year. A return to “normal” is not in the cards anytime soon, but moments of familiarity and return of effective practices through a new lens will always provide a brighter sky. 

🔭Use Your Spyglass

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, overburdened, or overworked. Looking (and thinking) forward is important to maintaining momentum and remembering that our business (even in a non-pandemic year) is a journey, however many dips and swells we go through. I bring up the idea of a spyglass as a reminder that the landmarks and guides we look for may be out of reach or out of sight, but they are still out there. 

🙋🏻🙋‍♂️🙋🏽‍♀️All Hands on Deck

Last spring saw a lot of treading water and skillfully managing to “stay afloat,” but we are all in a better place than we were then. That being said, it can be fair to feel like we are still taking on plenty of water. I’ve seen every staff member constantly scrambling and responding to every call to fill leaks and plug gaps. Some are small leaks that can be filled through schedules and supplies with others are wider gaps, like the remote gap that teachers and districts are working to fill with creative and engaging synchonous learning lessons. 

⭕️Man Overboard!

Keep the life-rings handy and keep an eye on your crew mates. Look for signs of fatigue and help with the heavy lifting, whether it’s connecting cables, co-teaching a lesson, or carving out 20 minutes to reimagine a favorite lesson or activity to be redesigned for hybrid instruction. Similarly, don’t wait to ask for help. Reach out to teammates, admin, or coaches. Nobody is expected or able to navigate this journey well, much less independently. For the more isolated or reserved educator, feeling lost at sea is a very real possibility at times!

👑⚜️⚱️Collect Treasures

An important part of any journey (and this is certainly a voyage of discovery) is the joy in sightseeing, and collection of souvenirs or treasures to celebrate moments. Educators always benefit from shining the spotlight toward surprises and discoveries, and learners certainly shine in the moment. Keeping a journal, noting small successes, and reflecting on both personal and professional growth would be a helpful record of extraordinary measures in response to extraordinary times.

🍾Bon Voyage!

New Top-10 Tech Tips & Tools

I love to create content as much as the next digital learning coach, but for every tip or tutorial to address a need I see or request I receive, a quick search finds that there are several better ones that already exist!  I often share them with my staff as Tuesday Tips, but many are too good not to share beyond our walls, so that's what this post is about.  That’s right, in no particular order, it’s a top-10/next-10 curated, collected, shared resources to rock your world (or make your day a little brighter). 

1.  Jamboard Templates 

Here is a collection of Jamboard templates.  Jamboard is a powerful collaboration tool from Google that has come to existence and popularity at just the right time.  It's still new to many, and this collection can be a great entry point for new users to find content to engage in-person and remote learners. There are tons of useful ideas compiled here, including morning meeting routines, word-work boards, and check in templates.

2. Mathigon

Check out Mathigon's Polypad- This is a part of their super resource site, and has a really simple whiteboard with highly interactive and intuitive manipulatives, everything from polygons and tangrams to hundred blocks and fraction bars.

3. Staff/Student GoogleTutorials

This impressive collection of tutorials for all things Google is a great one-stop shop for teachers and students/families.  It is constantly updated to provide specific links to topics and tools.  Notice how you can toggle between staff and student versions from the top of either doc.

 

4. Share YouTube videos without ads, pop-ups, or comments.

This is a no-brainer if you share links to videos, but are always afraid of the other content that often accompanies YouTube videos in Google Classroom or Seesaw. This quick video tutorial give you the trick to promote student safety when sharing digital resources.

5. Posts in Seesaw- With this brand new feature, you can pin a post in the journal to keep it from pushing down.  You will find this feature under the 3 dots of a post, or learn more here. It may be a small feature, but it’s also a biggie if you are a Seesaw user who is looking to lock pieces in place! 

6. Flipgrid Text Comments

Flipgrid is a powerful way to capture student learning and make thinking visible, particularly asynchronously.  However, not every reply requires an additional video post, and may in fact keep some students from engaging. This brand new feature allows for text responses to Flipgrid posts. Another small feature with big impact opportunity...

7. Seesaw Tutorial Tool

Part of individualizing your own pd is knowing what you don’t know, and this handy Tutorial Tool help deliver the right seesaw help where it’s needed. Click through to identify how seesaw can support you best. 

8. Shapegrams

Shapegrams are Tony Vincent's resource for students to recreate pictures with Google Draw in order to "practice visual observation, spatial awareness, logical reasoning, and critical thinking."  While it is paid, the first handful are awesome and free!

9. Screen-Sharing Solutions in Google Meet

Here is a great resource from there always-informative Jenn Judkins (Teaching Forward). As teachers in my own district have shifted toward the reliability and convenience of Google Meet, particularly its integration though google classroom, this tutorial gives a great walk through of the various types (and purposes) of screen-sharing methods. 

10. Management and Routines from Sean Jenkins

This post from a collection of excellent visuals from Sean Jenkins serves to help set tone, guide norms, and clarify expectations for our “new normal” in a hybrid/remote landscape. Learn more from Sean here.

Start SMART: Student Centered Considerations for Return-to-Learning with Intention & Empathy

It’s back-to-school time, sort of. We are on the eve of returning to learning, whether we are in person, remote, or in a hybrid model. The playing field has been leveled among recent and veteran educators who are all learning to build and fly their planes- underwater!  This blog post is optimistic and hopeful to remind us how and why we do what we do, regardless of space, pace or face-to-face. 

Disclaimer 1 

This Is a no-judgement zone. Whether or not you think it’s smart to be together, apart, or somewhere in between, these suggestions and strategies are meant to support whichever model your deciders have decided for you. That leads us to our first item, which has a disclaimer of its own.

 

Stay Student-Centered

This post and SMART model is built upon a Student-Centered foundation and pedagogical/philosophical cornerstone. Disclaimer 2: It has become easy to become self-centered during this pandemic, and I don’t mean that negatively, because we can’t help our students if we aren’t in a position to offer help to begin with. It’s the “place the mask on yourself before your children” philosophy that makes sense in order to make sure we are safe and healthy enough to help those around us. Being student-centered is about intentional, constructive, and optimistic practices that always start and end with student-learning and emotional well-being. 

Whether remote, hybrid, or face-to-face, the following elements set the stage for effective teaching and meaningful learning. Support is more critical than ever. Meeting the needs of all learners (and educators) by identifying and addressing needs only gets harder as the landscape changes, and district administrators should focus pd toward improving what we have and where we are before determining where we are going. 

Service is what we are all in this business for, but with challenging times comes a reminder that service should extend beyond students to support our selves as well as our staff and school. 

Finally, Safety sits atop the model as a priority that all other elements need to point to in order to maintain both physical social-emotional well being of us all. 

Keep Creating Moments

Any regular reader of this blog will definite my oldest and favorite graphic designed to illustrate the magic of moments. Whether we are together physically or virtually, it’s always about the student experience. We can design lessons that are meaningful, memorable or measurable, but when these three components intersect, we find the sweet spot of our business. It may be harder than ever to conceive how to create these moments, but they are the moments that we remember from our own education, the energy we wish we could bottle, and the activities we wish wouldn’t end when the “bell rings.”

Disclaimer 3: I'm plagiarizing my own previous blog post for the next 2 sections, because it's all about supporting remote learners, not just remote learning.

Give Straight A's in Class

How can we be separated in classrooms without feeling just as remote as if we were separated by screens?  These considerations look at reimagining the space and pace of in-person learning. We need to Address individual needs and issues of equity so that all student have access and opportunity to learn.  Teachers, schools and districts need to Adapt instructional space and pace to respond to limitations as well as capitalize on opportunities that smaller cohorts may provide. It will be a critical and fluid exercise to Adjust practice and expectations based on a magic blend of content, the delivery mechanism, wifi availability, learning objectives, and district demands. Finally, teachers and teams should constantly and Assess student learning, their own learning and the continued impact of continually changing circumstances. 

Support Remote Learners AND Remote Learning

React- We have been doing this to the best of our ability as the environment, the needs, and the expectations change, but when we are back with kids, reaction also means capturing and meeting their broad mix of energy, enthusiasm, and anxiety.

Respond- We must build on reaction to establish response.  This is where districts need to continuously plan, establish goals, and adjust with as much information and consideration for all parties as possible.

Restore- We will be living in the wake of COVID for a very long time, and when we return, the work of restoring culture and focus will take a highly concerted effort and plan as well.  Even in a hybrid return, all models point to teaching practices that are distant and isolating.  Are separated cohorts, desks, students, and teachers any less remote?  

Reflect-  We are bad at this in normal times, but reflection, self-assessment, and critical evaluation of our experience is always essential for growth and progress, and we shouldn't wait for the dust to settle! These steps of reacting/responding/restoring/reflecting should be ongoing by everyone involved.

Lean on Coaches and Model Learning

Even though every educator I know is overwhelmed by the landscape we find ourselves in, now is the time to lean on your supports.  Whether it's your room neighbor, admin or friendly neighborhood digital learning coach, I designed this cycle to model dialogue, sample lessons, or the integration of new tools to support familiar teaching.  It's intended to create the time and space to identify an idea, craft it into a learning experience for students with goals and objectives, accessible via innovative edtech, and an evaluative component to assess students learning and how well it met it's objective.  In looking at this cycle-model, the first 2 steps (time and talk) and last 2 (think and tweak) are the parts we too-often skip, or get shaved off, but are included to build intention before and reflection after, all in the service of impacting learning for all students. 

Now and going forward, let's get SMART and support ourselves, each other, and our students!

Back to School? Prepare to Pivot

At the time of writing this blog post, there is no decision on exactly how we will go “back to school” in just over a month or less (or more).  Most educators and administrators consider it inevitable that we need to shift between hybrid or remote models.  Whichever model it takes, let's shift the conversation from thinking and planning for back to school toward back to learning. Whether buildings are open, partially utilized, or locked up tight, school will be open and we need to be preparing and restructuring our virtual instructional environments as buildings prepare to adapt the physical learning spaces. 

In mid-March we had just abruptly left school, not knowing if and when we’d return, and I wrote in my blog, “It’s time to think differently about the way things have always been done.”  That holds true more than ever as we plan for any return, and we can't adopt a mindset of eventually returning to normal. Since we left school, the amount of unknowns has only overshadowed the amount of knowns when it comes to a return to learning and doing what we do. 

The worst thing we can do is to think about getting “back to normal.”  What puts us on edge is that whatever version of teaching and learning that is prescribed or designed yields an endless list of unanswerable questions. 

Many planning/advisory groups struggle with selecting a starting point to reimagine the unimaginable task of eventually returning students to our buildings. The issue comes when these committees can’t get past the logistics of in-person instruction to examine what the actual learning can look like. The essential health and safety questions, issues, and obstacles that are identified only push the equally critical questions of reimagining teaching and learning further down the road. This Edweek article does a great job speaking to that specific split, especially its impact on those at greater academic risk. 

Every return-to-learning option has significant limitations and concerns. Every concerned parent or educator can punch reasonable holes in any model, but neither option necessarily solves the issues of the other. I don't know what's right, but I do believe that the cost of keeping kids out of school isn’t repaid by returning too soon.

🎸You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do what's right, but maybe being a rock star helps!  If you haven't seen Dave Grohl's article in the Atlantic, the Foo Fighters/Nirvana artist tells it like it is.

Reinvent the Wheel...

Do we need to reinvent the wheel?  No, thank you! To roll with the metaphor (ha), this past spring saw our educational community pull out the spare, keep us on the road, and transport learners safely, but we all know better than to drive too far on the donut!  We weren’t deploying a designed and prepared remote-learning in the spring. We were responding to the need of a crisis and employing the best practices possible without time or training, all in service of a continuity of learning, but that wasn't (asnd shouldn't be) a sustained model.

What's needed is a complete realignment. Among the many unknowns, this much is known for sure: A broad-scale growth mindset will be required from every stakeholder in order to exercise the flexibility, risk-taking, and collaborative effort it will take to live and work ell beyond our comfort zones.  

 

Let's Face Some Hard Truths  

• We know nothing can replace in-person learning, but it may just not be the safe or right things to do. 

• There is no perfect option, but our responsibility to children is to meet the needs and limitations of whatever is selected.

• We may not be together but virtual meetings can still bring us face-to-face, and the effective use of tools like Google Classroom, Seesaw, screencasts or daily slides serve to bring classes and learners "together."

• Our service is to students- their health, safety, growth, and development. We need to listen to our gut when it tells us that coming together puts any of these elements at risk.

• The first and last months of the school year get gross in a normal year! Non-AC buildings are full or classrooms loaded with stagnant air, damp papers, sweaty desks, to begin with and that’s not even approaching flu season.

• Good teaching is good teaching, and lame lessons are still lame lessons- even if they use tech (a digital worksheet is still a worksheet!)

• Learners need synchronous and asynchronous opportunities to learn whether they are face-to-face or remote.

• Like it or not, school is free childcare for much of our nation.

• In-person arrival/dismissal, hallways, bathrooms, and recess will be big problems

• Some kids love and thrive outside the confines and inhibitions of a classroom environment, while others virtually vanish.

• Engagement and classroom management is every bit as challenging in a virtual space.

• The elements and requirements of a hybrid design are a significant step back from the innovative, inclusive, and cooperative model of learning that we all know is nest for kids.

Let's also balance and address the unintended consequences of this experience as they arise, but let's also leverage the unexpected benefits that also arise. We have all redefined and redesigned our own professional development.  Whether or not they wanted it (or thought they needed it), I'd wager that school staff and faculty have added more to their toolkit in the past 6 months than the past 6 years!

The educational world strives to provide students the "least restrictive environment but sometimes the environment is the restriction.  This Boston Globe article provides guidance from Harvard about reopening concerns. Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said in a statement, "School districts have neither the resources nor the know-how to get their buildings ready to open safely."  While this is a broad generalization, I don't it's unfair to say that district resources lack the resources to do this as well as any of us would wish for. 

Whether remote or hybrid, the thoughtful and intentional use of digital learning tools can provide opportunity for more student-centered instruction.  Learning can return, and school can continue, but how?  A key factor will be the communication and collaboration of wide spread of stakeholders (including parents) in the service of addressing the following steps:

React: We have been doing this to the best of our ability as the environment, the needs, and the expectations change, but when we are back with kids, reaction also means capturing and meeting their broad mix of energy, enthusiasm, and anxiety.

Respond: We must build on reaction to establish response.  This is where districts need to continuously plan, establish goals, and adjust with as much information and consideration for all parties as possible.

Restore: We will be living in the wake of COVID for a very long time, and when we return, the work of restoring culture and focus will take a highly concerted effort and plan as well.  Even in a hybrid return, all models point to teaching practices that are distant and isolating.  Are separated cohorts, desks, students, and teachers any less remote?  

Reflect:  We are bad at this in normal times, but reflection, self-assessment, and critical evaluation of our experience is always essential for growth and progress, and we shouldn't wait for the dust to settle! These steps of reacting/responding/restoring/reflecting should be ongoing by everyone involved.

The last R is resources, and for better or for worse, there is a flood of awesome resources for both educators and families.  Here are some of my recent favorites:

Tom Daccord's article on Making Learning Visible through Screencasting.

Pear deck templates for back to school-

https://www.peardeck.com/templates

Blended learning virtual checklist slide: https://meredithakers.com/2020/07/03/blended-learning-online-checklist/

Slidesmania Template For Weekly planner/agenda/etc

https://slidesmania.com/simple-weekly-planner-for-distance-learning-with-hyperlinks-for-easy-navigation/

Clare Landrigan blog:

https://www.clarelandrigan.com/blog/ral9t497hndt8djbr2f8rm4actqhzh

Bitmoji classroom tutorial: https://youtu.be/ZUDoniqrUmQ

😷🦠 Remote Educator's Alphabet

🦠😷Remote Educator's Alphabet 🦠😷

A
🕰Asynchronous- I think this is one of those words that been used in theory more than practice until this pandemic. Now we are understanding the benefit, challenge, and necessity in offering student-paced access and opportunity to learn. 

🎧Airpods- Cut the cord!  While I knew earbuds or headphones make a significant difference on both sides, I hadn’t realized how much more comfortable and natural a wireless Bluetooth pair of earbuds or AirPods would be. Not tethering to a device can shift screentime and videoconferences from a lean-forward to a lean-back activity.

B 

📳Bandwidth-As a parent of a 17, 19, and 20 year old, I am critically aware of the limits of bandwidth. I’m suddenly perfectly comfortable with the home-bound college students sleeping until noon!

💻Blended- While I have long advocated and worked to shift toward a blended learning model with my colleagues, remote/distance/online learning is not blended learning, nor does it or should solely rely on technology. As always, technology is the tool we use to elevate instruction while still offering personal connections and individualized instruction. 

C 

🤳Coaches- Now is the time to lean on instructional coaches. We know and connect the content, the kids, the tools, and the users.  As the landscape continues to evolve, coaches are here to help all staff grow and adapt to equally (and rapidly) evolving needs and demands.

🤷🏼‍♂️Comfort Zone- We all need to breathe.  Whatever our roles, we are all learning more and at a faster rate than we would prefer, but flexibility and a growth mindset can expand comfort zones. Discomfort breeds innovation and I have seen more creative innovation, adaptation, and problem solving among staff members across the tech-readiness spectrum in the past few months than in the last few years!

D 

🔐Digital Divide  More than ever, the digital divide and issues of equity are in the spotlight, with students paying the price and lost in the shadows. its critical that districts and administrators recognize and evaluate shortcomings or limitations that are only perpetuating inequities an access and opportunity for or most vulnerable learners. 

👩🏻‍💻Digital Disposition- It has been critical to expand our own digital dispositions and attitudes toward academic, social, and professional technology to be able to navigate life in quarantine!  As the sage mystic Neal Sonnenberg so wisely stated, "You can't hide anymore."

E 

🧗🏽‍♀️Expectations - Now is the time to shift (not lower) expectations. While our distance learning has upended the look of teaching and learning, it has also created opportunities to engage students in ways that are new for all sides. Just like in our buildings, we need to explore creative ways maintain student engagement to keep learning alive. 

F 

🎬Flipgrid- The free and easy solution to students creating and sharing video content. Whether it’s book talks, reflections, or just riddles of the day, Flipgrid has become a go-to platform for students and teachers to make voices heard- even remotely!

🧬Fauci- This guy! Talk about an emerging voice and subject-matter expert!

G 

💻Google, Google, Google- Classroom, Slides, Meet, you name it. Google has the right tool for the job again and again, and constantly tweaking and rolling out improvements that our situation demand. 

📽Grid View- In Zoom or Meet, we are reminded through grid view the importance of face to face, especially among classmates!

H 

🔗Hyperlinks- Whether it’s a Zoom link, a Google Classroom assignment, or a hyperdoc loaded with links, the hyperlink is the quickly overlooked MVP for placing content and communication one click away for our students and families. 

I 

🎞Instructional Videos- I have never watched more tutorials or instructional videos than I have in the past few months. I know my learning style, and a clear concise tutorial always does the trick. And with tools like Screencastify, teachers (and students) have the tools to create their own tutorials for best practices as well! Our students watch YouTube tutorials night and day, so for a remote learning assignment, Why not transfer some how-to or informational writing skills Into video tutorials on whatever skill or topic kids choose?

J 

😎JedTalks- shameless plug: check out some posts from the archives!

🤳Jigspace If you have not seen this app, it’s a mind-blower for dipping toes into the world of AR (augmented reality) and considering its reach into classrooms. 

K 

👍Kulowiec- If you have a chance to be a part of an in-person or virtual workshop with Greg Kulowiec, buckle up: you will learn a lot- and fast!

👬Kids- Never out of site or out of mind.  They are the reason we got into this business, and though their faces may be in one inch video squares, they need us as much as ever to be present, no matter what that looks like.

L 

🕵🏽‍♀️Learning- Yes, the first few weeks were about shifting and survival, treading water while assessing and addressing connectivity and figuring out just what this might all look like, but student learning never left our focus or central mission. We just had to adapt and adjust our ability to provide a continuity of learning through different modes. 

M 

🗓Menus- It’s about choice. Whether it’s choice boards or activity menus, allowing choice and voice through personalized (and asynchronous) learning experiences, educators are finding new and powerful ways to meet kids where they are and shared the driving. 

N 

✏️Nickname- If you are a google meet user, you know the magic of the Nickname feature. I have my personalized nickname that district users can just use to join right from meet or their gmail window to join meetings or access me in seconds!

O 

🛠Online Learning Manipulatives- This site is exactly what it says. It’s the right tool for the job when looking for clear digital tools to visualize learning tools and practices. 

🚪Office hours- I offer daily office hours for drop-in tech support, troubleshooting, or coaching sessions. It’s comparable to those drive-by hallway encounters where a surprising amount of coaching can occur!

P 

⏰Pace- As teachers, parents, and learners ourselves, our worlds have slowed down and spread out. After schools sports, enrichment clubs and activities have evaporated and students school-days have taken on a whole new pace. When all the dust settles, let’s hope we bring some of this flexibility and openness toward shifted learning time and space back to our buildings and districts. 

📍Platforms- Padlet, Wakelet, Flipgrid, Google Classroom, Seesaw: Platforms like these have made remote learning possible, or at least provided a structure to meet the needs of learners, give voice to ideas, and make learning visible in a virtual learning environment. 

Q 

🎥Quik-  If you don’t know this App, Quik (made by Gopro) is an instant Photo/video Compiler and editor that Can be a powerful tool to collect, compile and share media across platforms. 

🔐Quarantine- Now this a word I never thought would intersect with either my personal or professional life, and now it’s part of our shared vocabulary and experience. 

R 

🤔Reflection- Reflection on practice, equity, and impact is always critical and now is no different. If educators, administrators, and district don’t reflect and closely examine the practices that have been able to be let go along with those that have emerged, we have missed the unexpected opportunity to hold a hard mirror to evaluate existing structures and practices.

S 

🎨Seesaw- I have always thought seesaw was an incredibly powerful tool with capacity to empower our youngest to show what they know and capture learning. Yes, it took a pandemic to turn the tide on some of the more reluctant colleagues, but it has become the preferred companion resource for google classroom to be the one stop platform for content collection, communication, and creation.

T 

🧩Troubleshoot/Tech help- Some days I bum about the amount of tech help vs. teaching help I’m providing through my coaching position, but I remind myself that everyone is maxed out and sometimes the small solutions are the teaching help that’s needed to unlock or enable the teaching practice that follows. 

😳Toilet Paper- Who knew?

U 

🤯Unexpected & Unprepared- That pretty much sums it up. Hopefully this summer schools and districts can put together the training we wish had been in place before remote learning began. 

📲Updates- It has been impressive to see how products and companies have adapted and updated to meet the constantly evolving needs of the remote educators and learners.   

V 

🖥Videoconferencing- Whether it's Zoom or Meet, the virtual meeting space has become the learning and "classroom" environment of the day.  It has been inspiring to watch how educators have shifted from the early class meetings in almost crisis-response mode to effective content delivery, with small meetings, breakouts, and 1:1 support.  It's been interesting to me how differently I'm able to approach a coaching conversation across shared screens and virtual space.

🌉Virtual Backgrounds- Yup, I love them.  My current favorite backgrounds are Seinfeld's kitchen, Superman's fortress of solitude, and the street set from Northern Exposure.

W 

🎆Wonderopolis- This site is an endless resource for daily wonders: stories and articles about very interesting things. Great launch pad for reading and writing activities across content and grades. 

🏫Wide Open School- This powerful site from Common Sense Media is a one-stop shop for any parent, provider or educator looking to supplement and support student learning with organized, vetted, and curated content across academic, arts, and social-emotional spheres. 

X 

💠XR (Extended Reality). This broad term applies to AR/VR and any tech-enhanced or virtual environment.  While stuck at home, it's a great chance to learn more about Augmented Reality (AR), the layering of interactive digital images or content over our real view.  Any player of Pokemon GO is already a skilled navigator of an AR world.  JigSpace is a great mobile app to get your AR feet wet!  

Y 

📺Youtube- The internet's ultimate training tool!  With the unavailability of many services during this shutdown, you tube tutorials remind us how learning is a lifelong skill, and they empower us to develop and grow our own skill set, whether it's replacing a kitchen faucet, designing google classroom assessments, or cooking fired rice!

Z 

🌠Zoom. As the zoom vs meet battle royals wages, we have become skilled users of a product hardly any of us even heard of weeks a few short weeks ago.  Just imagine what this experience would be like without videoconferencing capability.

😴ZZZs- I don’t know about you, but catching heavy ZZZs has been challenging. Weird dreams, distracted sleep, and upended routines are affecting everyone’s sleep patterns. 

What did I miss?  Feel free to share you own go-to or game changer!