Blastoff! For many of us we are just weeks or even days away from the 1st day of school. We've talked about what blended learning is, but now you might be thinking, "That's all great information, but just tell me what to do during the first week of school." Let's take a look at 4 things you can do during the first week of school to get your students ready for blended learning.
1.
Teach your students how to log in. Then practice, practice, practice! I know this sounds so basic, but often times there is not enough time devoted to this. When I say this, I'm not just talking about elementary kids. I'm talking everyone from K to 12. You might be wondering why I think high school kids need time to practice getting logged in. Let me tell you what happened one year when my son was in high school. We were using Edmodo for the first year. A few of his teachers were trying it out and had their students create accounts to join their class. My son got home from school and needed to access something in his Edmodo account for homework. Guess what??? He didn't remember his password. I was in shock. How could a high school student not remember their password. I told him to hold on and I would log into the admin console and reset his password for him. I went to get my computer and by the time I got back, he was in his account. I said, "Oh good! How did you get in?" He responded, "Oh, I just created a new account." The part of me that was rolling out this software in our district wanted to shout, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" But the mom part of me completely understood that since no one had taught him otherwise then this was a pretty good way to solve a problem. Let me just say - my son was not the only high school student who just created a new account every time they forgot their password. It happened over and over and over. How do I know? Because I could see all of the duplicate accounts in our admin console. So, please, please, please teach the high school students how to problem solve and recover their passwords rather than creating new accounts. Even better, help all students come up with ways to keep their passwords safe but accessible for times when they forget them.
2.
Get students acquainted with your devices. We often assume that since our students were born into the digital age that they know how to use the devices in our classrooms. This is often a false assumption. Our students are good at using the most accessible devices in their homes which is usually a phone, but if you throw out a chromebook, macbook or other type of device students may not be familiar with all the nuances of using that device. It never hurts to spend some time showing them not only how to use the device, but also some of the programs that you plan to use with the students most often. One time Charles and I went out to a middle school to model a lesson. We decided to have the students post to a Padlet as part of the lesson because everyone knows how to use Padlet, right? Wrong! We soon discovered once we started into the lesson, that the students had never even seen Padlet and didn't know how to post to the board, upload an image or record a video, so we had to modify the lesson in order to accommodate the technology. This defeated the purpose of having technology to make things easier.
3.
Start teaching students about digital citizenship from day 1. Again, this is one of those things that we assume students know or that their parents teach them, but in reality this is something really important that students need to be learning on a daily basis throughout every grade level. There are different types of issues that are important and appropriate at different ages. For example, in
elementary school I might be talking to my students about how to log in, choosing a good password and keeping your password safe. In high school you might have to have more delicate discussions such as making sure what you do online is appropriate because once something is out there on the web, chances are it's out there forever. I know what you are thinking... Now I have one more thing to plan and no extra time to plan it. Let me help you by taking that off of your plate. Check out
Common Sense Media. They have amazing resources and already created lessons for all grade levels.
4.
Establish a home base to use as a one-stop-shop for all of your online needs. When I was a kid, I was living up north. I can remember what a Saturday morning was like with my mom. First we had to do our chores, but after that it was errand after errand. We went to K-Mart (there was no Walmart back then) to buy any random home stuff we needed like towels, sheets, storage containers, etc. Then we made our way over to the grocery store. No, K-Mart didn't have groceries back then. We bought all of our groceries except the meat. Then we had to drive home and put the groceries away before loading back up into the car to head to the meat market. I LOVED going to the meat market. It seems weird now, but the floor was covered in sawdust so it was like playing in the sand and my mom always bought me one of those small, single serving size bags of BBQ chips. Yum, Yum!! That might have been the end of the errands for Saturday, but there was also other trips to the pharmacy to get my sister's medicine (ear infections). There wasn't a pharmacy in the grocery store. I guess by now you are wondering why I'm telling you about my Saturday morning shopping
excursions in the 1980s. Well, sometimes this is how kids feel when we throw about a bunch of tech tools and websites to them. It gets confusing and tiring. Think about how our modern day shopping experience works. Charles talked about Target runs in the last post. In this day and age, I can go to Target and get all the same things that it took 4 or more stores to supply in the 1980s. Think of a home base like a Target store. You always go to the same place, but once you are inside there are tons of options available. So, to be clear. I'm not saying don't ever use any other online tools except for your home base, but make it a convenient and easy place for you students to find everything they need as it pertains to your class. For example, I might want to use a Padlet in class one day. That is perfectly fine, but I need to make sure that I post the Padlet link to my home base (my Target stroe) so kids can find it when they log in to "shop." There are so many different tools that you can use as your home base. If your district has an LMS such as
Canvas, then I would definitely use that as it has so many options and so much flexibility to make it look the way you want. There are also lots of free choices available such as
Google Classroom. If you are teaching elementary, I highly recommend using
Seesaw for your home base. Check out this
recent post for elementary teachers where I shared reasons why Seesaw was a top choice for elementary classrooms.
This is an exciting time of year. Let's make the most of those first days of school to set our students up for a successful year of blended learning. Post a comment below sharing any tips that you have for getting off to a great start with blended learning.
