My frustration is growing on so many levels. My brain is completely stuffed full of how to navigate new platforms like See Saw, Google Classroom and the various extensions that support them like Screencastify and Clever. So much thought has been put into making sure it works on the user end, which is the kids. This is wonderful. On the teacher’s end, it is a bit frustrating.

 

After making a few different activities in Seesaw, I assigned them to the kids. Crickets for days. No bites at all. So I made a video, a screencast video on zoom to share with families to ensure they knew how to log on to get assignments. But how to get the video to the families. The main communication tool I have, Class Dojo does not import QuickTime videos. Back to the Internet to figure out a workaround. A couple hours later, I have made a teacher YouTube channel with the uploaded video and sent a link through Dojo that way. Success, I hoped. But now, I see it is blocked if you do not allow pop-ups from Dojo. Do I need to now make a video on how to turn off the default setting, and allow pop-up windows? Where do I send it, if the only source I have, Dojo blocks it? Frustration.

 

On the plus side, I am getting so much faster at all these tools. It used to be if I had to toggle between applications, it took a while and if you do that in front of kids and there is dead time, trouble brewed. All teachers know dead time is trouble time. I think, should I ever get back in a classroom with live kids, I have cut the downtime in half from all my practice this week.

 

I checked the two apps the school pays for that the students can access from home and can easily see, nothing, or rather almost nothing, little to no movement.  One student has logged onto the reading app that allows kids to read books. Two kids have logged onto the math site. If you could see me now, you would see my slumped shoulders and downturned face, the crease in my brow deepened.

 

How in the world are we going to make this distant learning thing actually happen? We thought it was a device issue and it is for some, but not for all. I suppose my next move it to call the two kids who managed to get on and figure out how they did it. Then, I need to figure out all the things that are getting in the way of the other 14 students from getting on the Clever platform. Slowly, I will become tech support for each family, to get them on, comfortable and ready to do online lessons.

 

I video chat with one of them today, helping them do the last of the paper and pencil packet we sent home two weeks ago and even that was a challenge. I spoke to the mom, which the daughter translated for and then translated back to me, my student holding her baby sister and brother in her lap.  We managed to figure out what the worksheet was asking her to do. After that, I did learn that on YouTube you can enable closed captioning in different languages. So I can take the same video I made and upload it in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Arabic. The workarounds, I am learning about, are becoming the silver linings.