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Age of COVID19

 It seems that everyone has exhaustively talked about it. But has the exhaustion been talked about?  having to spend time at home because you were exposed to potentially contagious pathogens or virus strains.  COVID 19 virus picture

Having to work like you have two jobs because you have to do your regular face to face job, and now oh--you have to tend to those now home you worked with before and make sure they receive their materials, attention, and (learning) interaction because they have a right to it (though I have strong ethical doubts) as much as the people you are working with face to face. 

Though it puts much on you as a stakeholder (parent, teacher, administrator, community care person) you can try (and cannot guarantee) ways to try ways of developing your online presence in a way that would make Tomlinson proud.  I've heard teachers use following:

  1. Email - pretty standard and does communicate, but can pile up when you have 70+ students
  2. Messaging - as long as it is in the professional channels can be a quick solution (can also overwhelm)
  3. LMS messaging - this can work, but if you have notifications on (like in Google Classroom) you will get EVERY message notification sent.  Suggestion: set your LMS alerts to Digests.
  4. Video conferencing - can get as busy as emails if 1-1, but if you can leverage 1 to many, may be the most impactful for the bulk of content you want to push
  5. Announcements - Yep you get the word out, but how do you know everyone got the message?  I feel like Andy Rooney saying "I guess, it works if you ask them to show up tomorrow and you have 70+ connections on Zoom.  Whoops I did an all call, instead of one class."
  6. Threaded messages in groups.  This may not be for the un-technological, but get past the learning curve and you find a valuable (curated) tracked record of communication.  Plus you can specify whether to send a message privately to one in a group or altogether.
  7. Fliggrid and other gadgets.  I really like this until the legalism of "privacy" came into play.  I understand its place, but way to dampen my excitement of using a new tool.
The main idea is whatever means you want to communicate, stay consistent, and I am preaching to myself as I STILL am trying to find a steady stream to "fish" in.

Til I chalk again,

Mr. Shel

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