Educational Technologist Perspective: Important Things to Consider During Distance Learning
By: Julie Daniel Davis
Tags: Edtech, Distance Learning, Online Learning, Educational Technology, Teacher Support

educational technologist perspective

Limit the tools in the beginning for sure. I am so thankful we started with this mandate. Now is a great time for teachers to look at edtech tools that are free and consider them for the future but introducing tools that have not been used in the classroom means you will also be teaching students/parents how to use those tools as well. Check them out, but wait to start integrating these tools when you are face-to-face as much as possible. Limit the tools!

Have all teachers make recordings the same way, share the same way, connect the same way. This makes troubleshooting much faster. And yes, there will be outliers that do not use the tools suggested but keep pushing towards consistency for the sake of families. [insert grace filled smile here]

Just because edtech tools are free during this time doesn’t mean your teachers/districts should adopt them all. Remember the budget constraints will come back and you don’t want teachers to have created their lessons around the more robust version of tools only to be told they won’t have access to those tools later.

A quick video conference where the user can share their screen can solve many virtual learning issues much faster (and with better clarity) than multiple emails.

When looking at social media, I see many parents across the country frustrated with the lack on consistency in tools from grade level, school level, and teacher. Now is the time to consider what is it like for a family that has students in multiple schools in your district. If the interface isn’t the same, is it at least easy to navigate? If different school levels are using the same interface, are they using them the same way? If not, is that explained to the families? We will be rolling out a new interface to families in August and at this point the plan is for it to look very different for elementary students than upper school students because we will continue to push the upper school students to Canvas. Based on family-facing needs, should landing pages look the same preK-12? These are things that will be questioned in a virtual environment. Can we preemptively create a clear pathway up front to show clarity forward?

If you are seeing recurring issues across the board, challenge teachers to consider other ways to meet the need so that this issue could be self-corrected. For instance, it was taking a very long time for screen recorded lessons to be processed and ready for access in their Google drive. Two suggestions were made that work for our district:

— Upload the file to YouTube, embed the file when sharing it, or run it through www.viewpure.com before sharing with students to keep the YouTube garbage from distracting the learning process.

— Create micro-learning videos of no more than 10 minutes. This is considered best practice for online learning anyway. Condensing the video size solved the issue with sharing more quickly but also helped teachers to think differently about online instruction. Win/win.

Be offensive, in a good way! I find myself thinking about what tools we are currently using to meet virtual learning needs and what might be missing? This is a great time for the IT department to prioritize the tools and consider what other tools might enhance this process. It is also a good time to think about what tools are you paying for that really bring no benefit for online instruction? Maybe it is time to consider a purge?

What tools could we add to our teachers’ toolboxes at this point knowing that there is very little opportunity for professional development? When looking at potential tools, I find myself doing an analysis on how easy is it to understand?

How many teachers would actually use the tool if we chose to buy it? Does the tool add value across the board or does it meet the needs of a niche? Can the niche’s needs be met in other ways that are more cost efficient?

Is accessibility (including cross-platform access) built into the tool? Don’t assume everyone has access to iMovie for instance.

Do things need to be downloaded in order for the tool to be used (we have many teachers and students using Chromebooks)?

If I look at the Four C’s of Technology Integration: Creation, Consumption, Curation, and Connection…which tools lend themselves to tap into each of those different topics? The more varied a tool’s capability, the more easily it is to justify its use for educational purposes.

I was having a conversation with an educational vendor the other day and the discussion was on teachers adapting to this virtual shift in education. He said, “my guess is that in the future, universities will be training students in online instruction.” It made me reach out to some professors I know in various pre-service education programs. Each said that pre-service teachers receive some training on blended learning, online instruction, but not equal to the need at this point. The truth is, most teachers have never been really trained in what good virtual learning looks like but our teachers immediately jumped on board and have mucked their way ahead. I’m thankful for that. I also read an article yesterday that shared this “For those who do have access to the right technology, there is evidence that learning online can be more effective in a number of ways. Some research shows that on average, students retain 25–60% more material when learning online compared to only 8–10% in a classroom. This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning requires 40–60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.” (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/). I will be honest, it leads to many more questions for me but it is good to see that there is already some positive data to support this change.

I hope the new normal of our future, remembers these positives and includes the functional parts of distance learning into the classrooms in the future.