This school year started off with a bang and a fizzle - after returning from the US, we arrived in Shenzhen just in time for another lockdown. Our school district has decided to spend the first two weeks online, to help stop the spread of Covid through students and families who have traveled to other parts of China.
This year, I have also taken on a new role as Technology and PBL Coordinator! I'm looking forward to training my colleagues in UbD planning, so that we can make some awesome interdisciplinary projects. But first, I need to make sure that all of the elementary students are ready to learn online - especially those who are new to Teams!
I put together a quick how-to video that shows the very basics:
- Opening Teams
- Finding your class (Teachers add students directly through the SSO, so this isn't too tricky)
- Finding each subject channel
- Sharing a post with the class
- Finding assignments, downloading and uploading your work
- Extra features (like changing the operating language, which is really helpful for our ELL students!)
Here's my quick how-to video. It might be helpful for other folks in our situation!
As part of my role this year, I'll be leading a group to take a critical look at our different LMS programs. Right now, our students use Teams from grades 4 - 6, but we have a couple other programs that are also in use, and it is a complicated field for everyone to navigate.
Right now, Teams is really useful for our students - but it can also be tricky to navigate for younger kids, and the way we have set up our channels and classes is a lot of work for specialist teachers to navigate. My plan during the first semester is to gather more data through surveys and observations on how students, parents and teachers use each of our digital platforms. By the end of 2022, we will have made decisions to implement a more efficient, streamlined system across the school, and I can't wait to get started with this initiative!