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A Tech Teacher on a Mission

Social Distance the People, Not the Technology

4/8/2020

5 Comments

 
Let's be real: everyone's job is hard in education right now.

I know that there are challenges in literally EVERY department. I know that there are folks who have the pressure of completely transforming their teaching practice while others are busy training everyone up so that districts have capacity. I know that there are leaders looking out for the health & safety of all while others are busy abusing the systems. I know there are people who are scrambling to maintain their relevancy and proving against the optics why they should even get a paycheck while others are literally drowning in the work, screaming for a life raft.

The scenarios go on. I know. I get it. 

BUT. And this is a big BUT...

Who decided that professional learning couldn't come out of tough situations? Who decided that communication is not the #1 way to proactively mitigate uproar from your organization when making tough decisions? Who decided that cutting off access to something is easier than having a conversation together to discuss best practice?
​
I'm going to compare these issues to the cell phone debate that has long gone in schools around the world. There are two basic schools of thought here:

  1. When you enter my classroom, the phone goes into a bin / folder / pouch. When you leave, you can take it with you.
  2. When you enter my classroom, you can use your phone for educational purposes and I'll teach you how to do that appropriately. We can then refer to those lessons throughout the year as needed.
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​The underlying battle here is essentially this dichotomy of thinking: complete control via abstinence vs partial control via management. One is certainly "harder" than the other but I would argue that one of those tactics educates more than the other.

So why this comparison? Here's some personal context:​​​

The beautiful part about my district's Continuity of Learning plan, particularly the instructional support guidelines for teachers and families, is that social-emotional learning and connectedness is the #1 focus. The prescribed minutes of instruction per day are manageable and age-appropriate, and the considerations for students, teachers, and families alike are realistic. The plan is very well thought-out for all stakeholders. That's, frankly, hard to achieve, and I applaud them for this work.
​
However, resource-wise, teachers are still without an official list of technological tools they are allowed to utilize to roll out this plan, save for the pushing of two platforms that the district is championing: Microsoft Teams and All About Me by MyBlueprint. 

Since the Grade 7 team I'm working on has been using MS Teams as an unofficial pilot this year, we've had the opportunity to dive right in and connect with our students in a way that several other educators don't have the luxury of doing in any immediacy. Other educators have the hurdle of setting up a communication hub while we already have it established and running smoothly. So I say the rest of what I have to say with this in mind: we are in a different situation than most teachers. 

The team I'm on has been communicating regularly with IT and a district committee about our experiences or challenges that we have faced while using Teams. Now that we've found ourselves in this crisis situation, the platform is being pushed for use in intermediate and high school classrooms throughout the district. We were not and have not been consulted in how we may support these roll-outs even though that was something we willingly offered. 

But okay, no big deal, they didn't/don't need us, so we began planning for continuity in learning in our own classes while supporting people informally if they reached out. The focus in our own classes also looks different than that from others around the district because we don't have the aforementioned hurdles of establishing how this will be done, and we have already been able to use Teams to support engaging students in social-emotional learning. So, naturally, we started to explore tools and linked applications within Teams, and formed a robust plan around their features and affordances. 

Then, as we started rolling them out, we discovered that particular technology tools or features within our existing platforms have been fully shut off by our IT department. We had done all the planning, but students couldn't access features we had planned to heavily use. This was done prior to communication to teachers, and has essentially rendered useless - and this is not hyperbole - around 90% of the planning that our team had done so far. How did we find out these were kiboshed? When students tried to participate in the learning opportunities we had planned for them, they were met with a message of: “This is not available to you.” Not through our district, nor the people who knew we were piloting and innovating. We found out when the kids told us. (And yes, we did test the tools with student accounts beforehand. In fact, one test was less than 24 hours before the tool was banned from student use!)

So now, these last two weeks of prep and planning have almost all been for naught while the district continues to change their minds about what we're allowed and not allowed to use and how. And while I understand certain measures are temporary, others, unfortunately, are not. These decisions have included banning tools that would greatly enhance connection, often citing lack of FOIPPA compliance as the reason, despite local government statements of privacy law relaxation during the pandemic. There is also the issue of neighbouring districts who are also heavily-FOIPPA aware who use the very same tools that we're not allowed to, and no one seems to understand why.

Before you roast me for thinking I have some weird desire to bend laws to my pedagogical needs, let's be clear: I don't have some evil plan to post kids' full identities, addresses, grades, and IEPs onto a platform like Flipgrid. I'm trying to give them an authentic and asynchronous opportunity to see each others' faces and share their feelings about their current situation. This absolutely adheres to the flexible nature of instruction required by the district's Continuity of Learning plan while also factoring on the social-emotional/community/connectivity component I mentioned earlier. I don't need to use Flipgrid when I'm in a face-to-face instructional setting. I need to use it right now.  Because we're crisis teaching in a crisis situation.

​And this is just one of many scenarios we've been facing.

I'm not going to lie: I've cried several times. For the wasted time. For the missed opportunities. For the need to rethink almost every part of my instruction AGAIN and AGAIN as every new restriction presents itself. 

And of course, our team will pivot and recalibrate. Of course we'll be okay. Of course we understand and empathize with the positions other people are in through the district. And it doesn't change the fact that it's shortchanging the experience we know that our students could be having. It doesn’t make us feel less micromanaged. It doesn't change that it hurts. Professionally. Mentally. Emotionally. 

If you're a leader reading this, please know that the teachers who will work the hardest for you need fair, proactive, and timely communication. They need to be treated like professionals through tough decision-making. And they need to know their voice matters. Then, I promise you, they will buy in. 

Until then, I'm left feeling like I need to leave my figurative cell phone in the box at the door and just do what I'm told.
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5 Comments
Tamara
4/9/2020 05:56:26 pm

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm curious - what are the tech tools and features your IT department shut off? I'm planning to use Teams to host video chats with my grade 1/2s. I want to sustain some sense of classroom community for them and give them authentic communication experiences to support their language development - even if it is in this virtual space. I'm also a little confused about your reference to FlipGrid. I'm not sure what the connection is to your experience rolling out Teams to your classroom. Thanks in advance!

Reply
Victoria Olson link
4/9/2020 08:35:06 pm

Thanks for reading and commenting, Tamara. Our district shut off Flipgrid as well as the capability for students to place video calls between one another - something that we were relying on for a specific couple of tasks that we have worked all year for our students to do. Of course, this isn't how a typical teacher would use Teams during the pandemic and some of the moves make sense for the considerations for the general population. However, they are greatly impacting us as the pilot classes because we're actually being pulled BACK from things we previously had done. As I said in the post, this lens is probably not a typical take on the situation.

Flipgrid is an app that is integrated into the Microsoft suite. You can literally add it as a tab in your Team and students can do the tasks you assign from that tab... well, they can as long as your IT hasn't turned off that capability. Despite Flipgrid being owned by Microsoft, and several other neighbouring districts actively using it (who are also very FOIPPA aware), our district declared it not FOIPPA compliant. They are also asking us to be very flexible in our instruction and are all but completely advising against synchronous instruction. Flipgrid fits the bill in so many ways because it allows students to make their video responses asynchronously and they can view each others' responses. This means kids can "connect" with their classmates and teacher even if it's not in real time. This is the kind of tool that would greatly ease the meeting of these goals at a time like this.

Using Teams to video chat with your class is fantastic! You are absolutely right that it is a great way for them to build their language skills but also, it's a great way for them to continue making those relational connections with one another. Take it slow in getting parents set up with it and I would recommend starting small, perhaps with small groups and then building up to larger, whole class settings. For example, you want to let them know to mute their microphones when they're not speaking, to listen when someone else is talking, etc. The management is harder than inside of a classroom - I know because I did my first remote call with my kids today and some of those parts were tricky!

Reply
Tamara
4/18/2020 11:40:12 pm

Thanks for the tips and for teaching me about all this tech. You’re right. This is also an opportunity for professional learning. As stressful as this all is there is a part of me that gets a little buzz out of all the new learning. Be well.

Riza link
2/24/2021 08:01:28 pm

Wow! Such a great article you have there especially now.I hope you will post more articles soon. Thank you.
Thanks and Keep sharing. Keep safe.

Reply
Sullivan merry
2/18/2022 02:58:28 pm

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    Victoria Olson
    A curious and passionate educator in Langley, BC

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