School and the City

You asked for more information about making video lessons for students during distance learning. I've got you covered! Read on, teacher friend. Why are you prerecording videos? I've moved to an interventionist role this year. Because of that, my program isn't starting up right away and I won't have students assigned to me for the first few weeks. Of course, this year is far from normal, so we've decided that I'll spend some time creating a bank of standards-based videos for the students (and teachers) that I will be working with this year. I'm recording short minilessons that teachers can send to parents/students if they need extra support outside outside of the synchronous learning that they are doing. When I start meeting with my students, it will be live, not prerecorded. What do you use to record your videos? I use my school laptop to record videos. I got lucky with an upgrade right before COVID, so the video and audi...

Are you face-to-face or virtual? My district is currently all virtual, at least for the time being. I want to make sure that you are equipped to use resources you already have with your students, albeit digitally. Use what you already have - no need to completely reinvent the wheel! I have three tips for you to use PDF resources digitally. Work smarter, not harder! I'm going to use my text features products as the examples, which are great to tie in science and social studies content with your literacy instruction! 1. Grab Only the Pages You Need If you are emailing resources to parents, here's a trick to end up with only the pages you need from a PDF document. Go to "File," then "Print" like you normally would to print. Select the pages you want to use. Find the spot to designate the printer. Instead of a printer, though, choose "PDF" or "Save as PDF." Make sure to name your new document specif...

I've already shared 5 Ideas for Distance Learning , but I thought we'd look a little deeper into one topic today: recording video minilessons to send your students during this time of remote learning. What a crazy time this is. We're all doing our best and we all have different expectations, but one thing most of us have in common is that we have become overnight YouTubers - ha! We've had to learn a lot of new skills very quickly, without any advance notice. Creating videos for students is NOT easy, especially without experience and materials. I’m recording SUPER short videos to post for my kids daily. I want them to “see” me every day. When I surveyed students and parents, they said the videos were helpful, so I’m trying to keep it up. Here are a few things I've learned so far: One of the biggest struggles is to teach math remotely... without manipulatives. Did you know about Glencoe’s Virtual Manipulatives? This FREE website is a virtu...

I last saw my students on Thursday (not knowing it would be the last time for a while) and I got into my classroom for a few hours on Friday morning to prepare for distance learning. It was weird to walk out of my classroom not knowing when we’ll return. ⁣ ⁣ This week, I started “teaching” from home. I emailed parents on Monday morning with students’ assignments for the week, and I’m required to be online during my typical contracted hours in order to respond to messages and emails as needed. ⁣ ⁣ It’s going to be weird, y’all, but we’re in this together! The perfectionist in me has had to just take a few deep breaths and realize that we’re just going to have to learn as we go. ⁣ If you're going virtual soon, maybe I can be of some help! Here are a few things I've already learned along the way. 1. Favorite Sites for Distance Learning We'll be using tools that students are already familiar with using in the classroom. This means my kids know how to access...