Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Unprecedented time for collaboration

It’s a phrase I’ve both heard, (and felt), for decades: “If only I had more time!”

Well this is the time! With educators working from home, and with some autonomy over their schedule, the idea of having something like a common prep time, daily or weekly, with colleagues has never been easier!

The idea of doing something cross-curricular has also been opened up.

The idea of extending the learning beyond the school walls has taken on a whole new meaning.

This is still the early stages for many, and trying to figure out ‘remote learning’ while take some time. But that time will go much easier with collaboration. And as you figure out a schedule, now is the time to figure out when it’s best to collaborate with peers and mentors. As things settle a bit, this could be the time that teachers have always hoped for, and seldom got… time to collaborate, learn, and dare to try new things that was never time for previously.

The tech won’t always work… and that’s ok.

I’ve been ‘playing’ with digital learning and technology for a while now. My first blog post was in 2006 and my first podcast was in 2012. It’s Sunday night and I published a podcast over an hour ago. It usually takes a while to get onto iTunes, because first it has to go to a podcast hosting site called Blubrry. I did this a week and a half ago, and it went to Blubrry and then to iTunes pretty quickly. But tonight the new podcast won’t move to that first step, and I have no idea why? Even after I ‘ping‘ the website, (even though that should happen automatically), my post won’t go to Blubrry. That’s the frustrating thing, I don’t think I did anything different but somehow it won’t work. It might need time, and everything will be fine in the morning by the time this is published. It might not and I’ll have a whole lot of troubleshooting to do.

I do podcasts for fun. I do podcasts to learn. I’ll learn from this, but right now it doesn’t feel like fun.

Educators, as you head into the new world of ‘remote learning’, while we cope with social distancing, empty schools, and COVID-19 continuing to keep us physically separate, please realize that the technology doesn’t always work as planned. It doesn’t always work for the neophytes, and it doesn’t always work for the people like me that think they know what they are doing. When you get frustrated, and you will, remember this: Remember a time when you were really excited to teach a lesson. You stayed up late figuring things out and setting up the handouts for kids. Then you got to school and the photocopier jams horribly. You have no time to get your printing done. Dang! Your whole plan is done and needs reworking. At that point, you didn’t say to yourself, “That’s it, I’m never using the photocopier again!” That would be silly.

You’ll try using some technology for the first time and it won’t go as planned. You’ll try doing a video conferencing lesson and it will flop. You’ll have students doing things you didn’t expect them to do. And you’ll work it out. You’ll connect with your students. You’ll laugh at yourself and they’ll laugh too. You’ll get a lesson or two from a student that knows more than you. And soon, you’ll feel much better about the technology and the strategies you are using.

Oh, and even then, there will be times when the technology doesn’t work… and that’s ok.

Positive shifts

Recently I’ve seen a lot of companies giving away resources and services for free. There has been a significant shift in thinking about how we are all in this together. This has been spurred by the now over 1.1 million people who have been struck with COVID-19, and the realization that this number is going to rise significantly before we see a slowdown in its spread.

Community members are helping each other. Birthday wishes to strangers are spreading like crazy. People are helping elderly neighbours. There is widespread appreciation for health care workers, and custodial workers that support them, and for people working in grocery stores and jobs like delivery drivers.

When I’m out for a walk, people are politely keeping there distance, but also looking up and acknowledging me. I’m not saying this didn’t happen before, but it’s much more obvious now.

I think things are going to get a bit harder before they get better. I think more than ever we need to be a society that supports the most vulnerable. I think we need to invest more in social services, and find ways to make basic needs more equitable. We have a lot to do to make the world a better place.

But maybe, just maybe, there are enough positive changes happening to shift our world to a better place, after the concerns about the virus decrease and the economy rebounds. These aren’t small things that need to happen, but I like to think that some positive shifts will eventually come from this globally unifying experience.

It’s not a failure if it leads to success

I love this video:

https://youtu.be/0cF2LyYGDWA

It reminds me that the path to success isn’t always easy, and failure isn’t failure when it leads to success.

On a personal note, I started a 30 Day Challenge to do a 30 second freestanding handstand.

Progress until last night was pretty good:

https://twitter.com/datruss/status/1243331006767210497

https://twitter.com/datruss/status/1245227496930340864

But last night didn’t go as well as I hoped:

But here’s the thing, I’m pushing myself pretty hard. Also, I just want to handstand for 30 seconds but I’m actually doing the training to walk on my hands. On top of that, I’m trying to do a 5 step plan in 30 days, and 1/3 the way through I’m on step 3.

I need to slow down. The videos show me that my core is a weak spot. My shoulder no longer hurts, but it isn’t fully recovered from an injury. I’m going to hit my goal if I’m smart, and don’t rush, and if I do every step really well before moving on. Back to step 2 I go.

Meanwhile at work, I see similar things happening. With Covid-19 shutting down schools, we have educators scrambling to figure out how to teach students online and from a distance. All around me I see teachers trying to do too much, too fast, and getting frustrated. I shared this on Twitter recently:

When everything is so new and so challenging, mistakes will be made. Those mistakes will not be seen as failures in the long run if we learn, grow, and improve ourselves along the way.

Gears aren’t aligned

Have you ever ridden a bicycle when the gears aren’t aligned properly and so every full cycle of the peddles ends up with a jarring ‘clunk’ that breaks the flow of your peddling? If you have, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, imagine walking and every second step with your right foot it feels like someone tapped your knee with a finger. At first it’s uncomfortable, then you just kind of accept it as the norm.

I feel like March was a long month of the gears being misaligned, but we just got used to it. Now the Match break is over we are back at school and we have to adjust to a whole new misalignment with students staying home and the reality that Covid-19 will likely impact us for months to come. So April begins with a new misalignment that we need to adjust to, and while we know the ride won’t be smooth, we know we will get used to it.

I am excited about how this year will change the dynamic of teaching and learning in the future. In 2011, I wrote that ‘the future of education will be open and distributed’. In this post I said,

“Within 5 years, every student from Grade 6 or 7 right up to Grade 12 will be involved in some level of distributed learning.”

I was wrong. Things go much slower than I envisioned. In 2014 I wrote about ‘flexible learning opportunities‘ and I shared this graphic:

I said in the post:

“I think we are only 5-7 years away from the term ‘blended learning’ being obsolete in the same way that the term Distance Learning is now.  Here is an analogy to think about: The move from ‘Distance’ to ‘Distributive’ learning was the switch from having a ‘phone extension chord’ to the cordless phone. The switch from ‘Distributive’ to ‘Blended’ is the switch from a cordless home phone to cell phones. Now, the ubiquitous use of data-rich phones everywhere is similar to the leap we will see.“

It looks like we might get there.

While I think that teaching students, who are not coming to our schools daily, is going to finally catapult us forward in ways that I thought would have happened years ago, I also think it will take some time to get over the feeling that gears are misaligned. In fact, for the next while, it’s going to feel like we are riding up hill in the wrong, clunky gear.

I’m excited about where we are headed. I’m just feeling like the ride to our destination will be a bit uncomfortable. Hopefully by May we feel like our gears are aligned.

Transforming Exponentially

It’s 15 minutes to midnight on the first Monday after March break, and I still haven’t done my ‪#SDFitnessChallenge‬ exercise yet today. I will work on my handstands after writing this and I’m not waking up early to workout and finish this post tomorrow morning, like I usually do. I’ll sleep in a bit later. Today the work day just kept going and tomorrow is already a busy day.

My fitness progress is incremental. My commitment to daily writing is a marathon, not a sprint. Even my dedication to transforming education moves slowly… but the school closures for Covid-19, and the Provincial commitment to a ‘Continuity of Learning’ is promising to be exponentially transformational.

I wrote a post a while back called Isolation vs Collaboration, and in it I said,

“Educators who work in isolation improve incrementally, while educators who collaborate transform exponentially!”

Kathleen McClaskey posterized the quote, and shared by in a Tweet and on the Personalized Learning website.

Recently Michael Buist also posterized this quote and shared it in a tweet:

https://twitter.com/buistbunch/status/1244352249947660289

With almost every educator in the province looking to connect with students digitally, many are quickly realizing that trying to do this alone is overwhelming. They are connecting with colleagues, and district support teams who are developing resources to support them.

With endless resources available online, educators are realizing that information is abundant, and students developing literacy and numeracy competencies, and skills, are more important than just focusing on content.

With an inability to proctor tests and supervise exams, teachers are rethinking assessment and evaluation.

Doing this all at once can be a bit scary and overwhelming, but working with colleagues and mentors can help. Collaboration will be key. This is not a time to try things on isolation, it is a time to work together. For now changes have been forced upon us. These changes can lead us to rush and just do small incremental changes in individual practice. Or we can be slow and thoughtful and ensure that these changes lead to a collective, exponential transformation in the way we look at content, skills and competencies, as well as our assessment and evaluation practices.

Let’s commit to working together, sharing openly, and transforming our practice exponentially.

Break in routines

It’s Monday after the March break and the week ahead will be far from routine. I’m starting my work day in less than an hour but students won’t be walking in the school doors and I’ll only see my teachers digitally. I’ll start the day reviewing emails I’ve flagged that remind me about new procedures and expectations around dealing with Covid-19, and the ‘new normal’ that will be far from normal. Next I’ll join a district team in a digital meeting to discuss supporting administrators and teachers. After that I have two meetings with two of my different school staffs. After that, communication to students and parents.

Usually, returning from March break means going back to a normal routine, but this year there is nothing normal about what I’m returning to. Yesterday I wrote that the quick answer isn’t always the best answer, but starting today I’m going to have many people wanting immediate answers from me. Some will understand my need to find out more and ask more questions before responding, some will get frustrated with my lack of answers. Some will approach me with resilience to handle the abnormality of our new situation, some will feel frustrated, nervous, and even scared. Some students or parents won’t engage in asking questions even if they have them.

In general we are creatures of habit and we like routines. Not all the these routines we have are positive and healthy, but routines help us cope with challenging situations and help us stay calm and resilient. When routines break, some of those coping strategies are lost. This is a time when we have to be supportive to those that do not handle changes and breaks in routine as well as others. This is a time to remember that we are dealing with human beings going through a challenging time. This is a time to remember that we ourselves are going through a challenging time.

This tweet by Dean Shareski really hit me this morning:

We need to focus on the needs of those we work with and for. We need to remember that that students, parents, and educators can struggle with new routines. We need to put people’s well being ahead of concerns about curriculum and learning. As we navigate the new teaching and learning routines we are creating, we’ve got to put people first. The rest will fall into place as long as we don’t rush and, while going slow, we show that we care for one another.

The quick answer isn’t always the best answer

Tomorrow marks the first day back from March break in our school district. Teachers will not be returning Monday/Tuesday, and can schedule a time to come in to collect resources etc. after that. The continuation of learning plan will evolve over the week in response to schools being closed to students due to COVID-19.

I know that students and families want to know what things will look like after that, but no one is rushing to give answers, and for good reason… This is all very new to us and our approach moving forward deserves thoughtful planning.

We need to consider:

  • Ministry expectations and requirements
  • District plans and protocols
  • Capabilities of staff & technology
  • Capabilities and needs of students and families
  • Fairness with respect to expectations across the district and province.

This last point is interesting. At one my schools, Inquiry Hub, we could almost run everything the same. Every class already has shared digital spaces. We could have students meet on Microsoft Teams during class time and students are only in class 40-60% of their day, so they could still have large parts of the day to do school work, and inquiry projects, and have free time. But how fair is it for us to expect this of them at home, when no other school is expecting this? How fair is it when we don’t know how equitable home situations and supports are?

We need to go slowly. We need to ask a lot of questions. We need to think about expectations at the provincial, district, school, and home levels.

A quick response will not be as good as a slow, thoughtful response. The pandemic has everyone thinking in ’emergency response mode’. What we need now is long term thinking and planning. We can’t treat a continuation of schooling like we are in a constant crisis with immediate response time required. We have to remember that the school year ends at the end of June, and quick responses now, without thinking and processing time, will not help us get to the end of June in a thoughtful and supportive way. We need to slow things down, think things through, and put the long term well-being of our students first.

Are we Social Distancing or Physical Distancing?

Disclaimer: Continue Social Distancing as recommended by health professionals! I’m not talking about changing practice, only changing perspective! We all need to do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how Connecting Online is Easier Than Ever:

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Since then I’ve come across the term ‘Physical Distancing’ a lot more. This is really the issue. Reducing or actually eliminating our physical proximity to others long enough that the virus doesn’t spread. However, we can still be social in the digital world. Video helps. It’s nice to see the people we connect with. 

More than ever, I think this is a time to be social and to not let the idea of being isolated get you down. As we head into a long period of physically distancing ourselves, I think we should find ways to connect with people socially. Be intentional and thoughtful, whether connecting for fun, for learning, or for work… but no matter what your intention, make sure that you make the time to be more social and to connect in ways that meet your needs to spend time with others.

________________

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Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post

Positive Messages Make a Difference

My niece, Lisa Bouliane, wrote the following post on Facebook. She is a nurse in a large hospital in Vancouver, BC. I asked her to open the post up (beyond just sharing with friends) ,and if I could also share it here. It speaks for itself:

Lisa Bouliane – March 23 at 9:14 PM

I was biking home from work at VGH tonight and passed this message on the sidewalk. Thank you. I continued biking past down the road, before realizing I was tearing up at the message. I knew I had to circle back and take a picture to share.

I work in a critical care area of the hospital where the workplace has been a whirlwind of emotions and preparations. We are madly implementing safety measures for both patients and staff, for the impending increase of covid positive patients that will be admitted over the next couple of weeks. Working at the hospital is a highly emotional place as it is and now tensions are even higher, with a general feeling of the calm before the storm.

After another long and stressful 12 hour day, to come outside and see a message of appreciation touched my heart. This simple message on the sidewalk eased a sense of stress and anxiety I hadn’t realized I had been taking home with me. It immediately relaxed me and reminded me that we are all being impacted in numerous ways by this virus. It reminded me to be thankful to my amazing hard working colleagues, as we all go through this journey together. It reminded me to be thankful that I am young and healthy, and able to continue going to work to help others. It reminded me to be thankful for the people and support that I have in my life during these difficult times. I’ve had friends and family deliver food to me as the grocery store was emptied out while I was at work all week. I’ve had a bottle of wine left for me at home as a token of appreciation. I’ve had a friend loan me puzzles for something to do on my days off. I’ve had numerous messages from friends in health care and my sports team, and old friends and family members reach out online saying thank you for all I am doing. These gestures, both big and small, mean a lot to health care workers right now. We are stressed, and working in the unknown right now. The acknowledgement that we are working hard to keep you, ourselves, and our loved ones safe and healthy is warmly received.

I’d like to thank this mystery message writer for taking time out of their day to leave a mark of positivity on the world. Such a simple gesture, a simple message, touched my heart more than I’m sure you intended to.

Now everyone take a deep breath. We are all in this together. Please take care of yourselves and be thankful for the small things in life, like a simple chalk message on your way home. Be kind to others, wash your hands, and stay home!!

Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post