Online First Week of School Lifesavers

I made it through my first ever online first week of school! It went much better than I expected it would. Not everything went exactly as planned, but I feel like I got to know my students and got to set up some routines. There were a few life savers that I don’t think I could have lived without, and I’d like to share those with you!

LIFESAVER #1: A CLASS LIST WITH PICTURES

When I started my first Zoom call with my class, I had students come in with names like “iPad” or “Samsung” and even one written in Thai characters. This wasn’t a problem when I ended the year online with students I already knew, but to start the year with new faces I needed a way to identify who was in my call. My school uses FACTS for attendance, and it has an option to view students’ pictures on the attendance chart. This gave me a way to match the face in my call to the face on my list. If you don’t have a way to see pictures for your students, one of my friends suggested this method: say, “I am going to unmute someone. If it’s you, please say your name.” I’ve noticed that students don’t respond well to being called out for what their Zoom name currently is or even by what they are wearing. A way to get students’ names fixed right away made my first day go smoothly!

LIVESAVER #2: A COPY OF EVERYTHING STUDENTS HAVE

My school chose to have parents come to school to pick up paper packets along with the digital work they do online. I had extra copies of some of the papers I sent home, and those were valuable to show the students on Zoom exactly what they needed to get. For the papers I didn’t have a copy of, I tried describing the paper or giving the title, but students had a hard time understanding what I meant. I needed to orient students to what their Writing Folder or Phonics Paper looked like before I could expect them to find it. This also held true for devices; when I tried to teach students to annotate on the Zoom screen, I showed them what it would look like on a computer and on an iPad. They needed to see both platforms instead of just hearing me say, “Tap the screen and look for the pen icon in the bottom left hand corner.” Showing students exactly what they needed helped me keep them on the same page as I taught class.

LIVESAVER #3: ONLINE SCHOOL NATIVE STUDENTS

Researchers have called people who grew up with technology “digital natives.” With this year’s class, I feel like we have gone beyond digital natives to online school natives. All of my students knew how to get on Zoom and how to use the Seesaw tools. I usually spend the first week of online school having students practice basic skills on these platforms, but since my students already knew the basics I could move on to more advanced skills. Online school seems likely for the foreseeable future, so I want my students to be able to use all the digital tools available. I could spend extra time teaching how to annotate and how to change your name on Zoom because my students already knew how to mute/unmute and turn their camera on and off.

This week, I’m moving on from teaching routines to teaching new content. I’ll let you know how it goes next Tuesday!