#Edtechchat focuses on Education Technology. Co-founder Tom Murray says #edtechchat "connects us professionally with inspiring educators from all over the world, all of who encourage us to be better every day for the children and families we serve.”
A1: The schools our Code Next kids come from (mostly in Oakland, CA) cancelled when the fires were taking place a few months ago. The air quality was crazy. We cancelled our Code Next programming too, for a few days. #edtechchat
A1. Well, we've had three weird snow disruptions in a row. Thursday and Friday were delays. Today was an early dismissal! We've had a few weird ones too: Tornado Day last year (Weird in Central PA) and Water Main break this year as well. #edtechchat
Hi from Connecticut!
A1) Our home district was out two days in a row for last week’s bombalarosa or whatever the storm was called. And there was a water main break at our younger daughter’s school on the first day back from holiday break. #edtechchat
Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
A2. There's nothing in place. Our HS tried having Digital Days on Snow Days a couple years ago, but was not accepted as a school day by the Diocese unfortunately. #edtechchat
Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
A2 we have to make up every day off. Guess that is formal plan. Talk was about not making up and assigning work via tech but still many SES kids w/o Internet at home #edtechchat
Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
A2) As a parent, I'm not aware of any plans. I also don't necessarily expect it unless the missed days become excessive. I do wonder whether tech will make snow days irrelevant. #edtechchat
Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
This is why you need to be aware of your constituency. In my school, not a concern. I wonder what the stats are these days about internet connectivity. #edtechchat
A1: I feel like most CA and TX schools don't. When I taught in Houston, it rained a lot one day. They cancelled school because they were... afraid people didn't know how to drive in the rain? The kids just all stayed home & we lost the day from the academic calendar. #edtechchat
Rt of Q2: Does your school or district have formal plans to continue instruction when school is canceled due to weather? If so, how do they do so? #edtechchat
A2: no formal plan but some Ss do check into their LMS if there teacher tells them to just in case there is a snow day the next day. Most of the time it's a snow day and we all enjoy time at home lol :) #edtechchat
Yeah, I felt this way at the end of the first snow day, where the weather was too hazardous to go outside. The second day was for sledding. :) #edtechchat
A2 Would love to see some go-to STEAM activities for snow day homework. Even if students don't have net access at home they could participate #edtechchat#WomenInSTEM
I teach a computer science course, and we're 1/3 no computers at home. Public, rural school is probably as different from yours as they come #edtechchat
I think there are people on both sides of this debate. No kids of my own, but I have 2 younger sisters (2nd and 8th) and my parents are advocates of "letting them be kids" on Snow Days. Distance Learning needs to strike an appropriate balance. #edtechchat
A2: if parents are home, even better! Spend some quality time together cooking, baking, talking, playing games, snowball fights...whatever works.... #edtechchat
A 2.5: My admin might, but the state keeping track of instructional days probably won't. I believe the brilliant state of IL is doing a 3 years study to determine how this could be done. #edtechchat
Where are you again? I'm good if we have a normal week this week after the 1.5 to 2-day school week my kids had last week, right after being out for school vacation. #edtechchat
Very true. I'd like to survey parents. I've taught in the school for four years, and assignment digital work at home (perhaps naively), but have not heard about families not having regular access. I'm going to look into it. Should certainly be mindful of inequity. #edtechchat
Love it! Start the cold weather months with a couple of options that students can choose from - some could use tech and some not - that they would know are hw on any given snow/cold weather day off #edtechchat
A2 Would love to see some go-to STEAM activities for snow day homework. Even if students don't have net access at home they could participate #edtechchat#WomenInSTEM
Good evening #edtechchat. 4th and 5th grade school teacher in Maine popping in late. Three cancelled days so far this year. 1 for snow, two for lack of power due to windstorm.
Definitely. The school is pretty affluent. I really don't think there is much lack of access, but this conversation has made me want to look a little deeper into the situation. #edtechchat
A1: In 22 yrs I think my district has had 2 snow days and a few cold days...one time we had a water main break which canceled our elementary school! #edtechchat
I like this idea, but it wouldn't fly in New England - kids are already over scheduled with sports/activities. Barely getting them for the hours we have scheduled! #edtechchat
In reply to
@sarahhanawald, @Gregbagby, @s_bearden
Passing out devices, upgrading the network, & deploying an LMS is the EASIEST part of an #edtech initiative. Changing attitudes, creating a culture of risk taking, & expanding your educator's pedagogical capacity is HARD. What will you be remembered for? #edtechchat#caedchat
A4 I would imagine the toughest challenge would be to replicate small group discussions. With my Ss covering a wide area, storms will likely cause outages limiting access. Would like to develop a menu of choices for Ss. #edtechchat
A4: Lose that personal connection. So hard to read between the lines of a post, email, tweet, etc... Need to have face-to-face time to make sure they really get it. #edtechchat
We do have to have a fair amount on the ground and more predicted to cancel. Ahhh, but when I was a little Mainer we we went to school with snow over our heads. #edtechchat
A4: TIME! There is already not enough of it to get everything done before the end of the year. If we can’t send some of it home while school is canceled something has to go in the curriculum to catch up #edtechchat
A4) touched on in A2, but its the lack of home computers and internet for many students. We don't want to hit our already disadvantaged students with another blow/plan to leave them further behind peers. #edtechchat
A4 Mobile devices, 1:1 and BYOD allow kids to keep working. If more teachers & schools encouraged their use everyday it would allow for seamless 24/7 learning #edtechchat#AppleEDUchat
A4 Internet/tech access is a definite challenge. As a math teacher, I could train students better to look for the mathematical practices. If I did, it could be an expectation that any day off they should use 2 practices & prepare one way to present... thoughts? #edtechchat
When I was in the classroom, we stumbled upon some of our best new ideas after snow days. Timing would get so messed up, we'd have weird 1/2 weeks to start new units. Instead, we threw the curriculum out the window and got creative! #edtechchat
Participation based course, american sign language, doesn't lend itself well to school closures. I post videos of myself signing for them to practice in general but not having a partner is rough #edtechchat
Hey friend! Happy New Year! #edtechchat How's your #oneword going so far? Mine is great! I actually put laundry away when it was warm today. ;) #finish
Generally like it! Most immediate challenge I see is making sure the problem set the can pull from either lines up with where you are in class, or are good review problems from earlier #edtechchat
We had a duolingo competition one year. Students had to participate outside of class time. Lots of fun! (Access is not a problem in our school) #edtechchat
A5) pretty early on, we give them a lot of good resources and websites to use on their own time, and coding problems that work anytime. Keeps the motivated ones moving! #edtechchat
A5 Training students in digital citizenship and how to use tools allows them to organize how they'd like to communicate their learning! Give them the tool belt early then have some #snowday open ended questions ready to roll! #edtechchat
A5 Teach can be incorporated into a menu of options, along with non tech opportunities. Some choices can be connected to curric while others invite Ss to explore with purposeful creativity or play. #edtechchat
Sounds fun! ;) I do remember us huddling around an imaginary fire by the time the bus got there some mornings. It was actually a pile of snow. Lol! #edtechchat
In reply to
@Gregbagby, @s_bearden, @Whitwood2WEDG
A5: give them challenges to document using #edtech - for example, "What are different ways you see numbers?" or "What patterns do you see when you are out and about?" #edtechchat
If your allowing them to use what they're already doing or interested in as a way to show evidence of their learning rather than do more "school" stuff #edtechchat
I'd at least rephrase it as "learning any time, on their time". Are you playing outside and see a cool bug? Here's how to look up what it is. But I strongly believe in play time. Its social learning, and only your imagination prepares you to consider the future #edtechchat
A6 encourage responsible sharing. Maybe have them send a social media message to a news station reporting on what is happening in their backyard #edtechchat
Before we sign off #edtechchat, please log in quick to your ISTE accounts and vote for my session! I would love to see you all in Chicago! #shamelessplug
A6: T's are my S's, so I love the idea of @jmattmiller#ditchsummit as PD. I want to use this idea for our district for our SpEd T's. We could do the same for in class choice or at home during breaks, etc. #edtechchat
A5: Collaborative tools such as #googleapps@flipgrid@TodaysMeet help to encourage after hours learning by bridging the classroom and home - encouraging the opportunityfor Ss to learn together #edtechchat
A6) even for students without home internet access, you can build excitement for "come to school, and I'll help you look up the answer to anything". And if there's no answer, that's even more exciting! #edtechchat
A6 DIY videos / pic flowcharts. With snowdays kids get into all sorts of creative mischief. How to make grandpas brownies, plan for a snowfort, win at Monopoly. If no tech they can write or draw steps. #edtechchat
