Week 4

The Business Department at my university has been sponsoring 1 hour trainings for local teachers on topics related to Emergency Remote Teaching. I was thankful to have the opportunity to present this week on one of my favorite tech tools, Flipgrid, for asynchronous video presentations. We had 40 teachers in attendance K-12 from a variety of subject areas. The other presenter is one of my favorite educators, and not just because she has a great british accent. She is energetic and her topic at this week's presentation was a great example, the superhero within us.

The session went well. In hindsight, it would have been useful to have some procedures in place to monitor chat questions, but we were able to mutually support each other spontaneously. I am impressed that the Business Department is able to give ACT 48 for their events. It really shows care for the local teachers who have to constantly be chasing these credits.  I submitted an application in February to be allowed to do the same and hope to hear from the PA Dept. of Ed this month (April).

I will really miss my Tech in Ed students when this semester wraps up in a couple of weeks. Each of my classes was so different today... so refreshing. My morning class was larger, as usual. The first students to do their check-in mentioned struggling emotionally and shortly after that a student asked for a game link... and a moment of joy was born. I told the class that after we learned to make screencasts (our tech for the day), we would play a game. They seemed happy (a little hard to tell with everyone's sound muted).

Following class, we divided into teams and I sent out the link to "Code Names". I acted as moderator and didn't play. Everyone was involved and talking. The game went very well, but the best moment was when I got an email later in the day from one of the non-traditional students: 

Thank you for letting us play the game today during class it was fun and a nice break!
I also wanted to share its snowing at my house now, what a crazy weather day!

I had been distracted during class (April 16) by snow falling...

My afternoon class was the smallest yet, but no less heartwarming. I met with a young lady who, in addition to learning to screencast, wanted to talk about her final project. At the beginning of class her video and mute were on, as is typical for her. I would talk to her and she would chat short answers. When she saw no one else was coming. She unmuted. Then she turned on her video. We started to talk about her workout routine and she came to life. One thing led to another and... if all goes according to plan... she is planning a kids' virtual "Fun Run" for her final tech project. She will get the cousins involved with a fun video advertisement and host the results of their run on her personal website.