• Compassion
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Courage
• Creativity
• Critical Thinking
• Reflection

Last week, I chatted with a group of fourth graders who had been working in a group and were communicating and working together very well. As part of these chats, I always ask for advice on how teachers and other students help to develop these attributes in all of our students. 

These students spoke about all of the challenges of communicating online – not being in the same room, poor internet connections, and difficulties in seeing what others in the class are doing. They spoke of issues around cameras being turned on and off. 

These students all tried to keep their cameras on when they worked together and often shared their screens so others could see what they were doing. But they noted that there are times when it is appropriate to have cameras turned off. When I asked them about how they might decide to turn their cameras off, one student said it is really about good manners and the others agreed. 

People might not want to watch them eat a snack so they might turn their cameras off while they are doing this. They might also turn their cameras off when they leave their room for a moment. They might turn their cameras off if it is time to work by themselves on a task. If they need to turn their camera off because of bad internet then they would write this reason on their screen. 

One thing they all said though was that when another person was sharing an idea, they would always turn their camera on (except maybe when the internet connection was poor). They said that it is important for others to know that they are being listened to and it is good manners to give your full attention to people who are talking to you – whether online or in person. And if you show good manners like this to the people you work with, they will show good manners back to you and you will be able to share your ideas. 

When I was a child, my mother always used to say ‘manners make the world go round.’ It is very comforting to know that as technology continues to provide us with new ways to communicate and work together, we have students who understand that simple human actions and gestures like good manners still make the world go round.

INTERNET PROBLEMS & OFFLINE LEARNING

We have done some planning for the unlikely event that there is a country wide permanent loss of access to Google tools.  In that event everyone should log in to PowerSchool and look for the menu item on the left side of the screen called ‘Office 365 Credentials’.  Here you will see a single user name and password for both email and for documents. The email has already been set up such that all school email from now on is being forwarded to the alternative email platform.  The documents platform is the place where teachers would upload documents for students.  There is no need to log in to Office 365 before losing access to Google.  It is advisable, however, to login to PowerSchool just to make sure you know your login and password.  If anyone needs help with logging in you can review this simple guide to resetting your password and if that doesn’t help you can contact the PowerSchool Help team at powerschool@isyedu.org.

Although we have yet to lose complete access to the internet during the school day, we do have a plan for this happening.  In that event, students not involved in a transition day, will work from home on pre-arranged work that they have downloaded already.  Elementary School teachers have sent a download to parents today and Secondary School parents and students will be getting their downloads on Monday.  Secondary students and Upper Elementary students will go through the download process with their teachers in class.  It is important that this work is downloaded as soon as it is received so no use of the internet will be required to access the instructions.  These downloads will be updated from time to time in line with the progress of students through their various studies.

Offline Learning Activities in the Elementary School:

The grade level summaries you receive every Friday will now have a PDF document attached. This document will be a summary of what has happened in class that week plus a selection of Offline Learning Activities. Students are to do these activities only if we lose internet access and classes cannot proceed online. These activities are connected to what we are doing in class but they are only to be done on days that we cannot meet as a class. When classes resume, students will share and reflect on their work. Please download the PDF Summary & Offline Learning Document when you receive the email on Friday. In this way these Offline Learning Activities will be immediately available to students if we lose internet access in the following week.

Below is a video that outlines how to download a PDF document:

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