The hardest part about transitioning to online learning was
definitely embracing the unknown, so we had to do so as a country
and also with our classes and we had to guide our students through
that. Another part that was really difficult was adapting our
teaching strategies so that they were effective whilst weren't in the
classroom space as a community.
We went into lockdown in the middle of a school holiday,
so we had to start a brand new term 100% online.
So the hardest part of transitioning into online schooling for
students, I think was the social aspect of it, and not being able to
see their friends, not being able to ask questions in class and speak
to their teachers and those types of things.
Another thing was the different internet speeds that the kids were
working with and then having to, they kept interrupting the lesson
and said, ma’am you're glitching, ma'am can you just repeat
that? I didn't get that or I didn't hear that.
The technology solutions that were really helpful during lockdown
was being able to record and host live lessons and calls with the
students. So those students who weren't able to partake in the
the lessons or that missed the lessons, they could actually go back
and view those lessons and also revise the work that we recovered.
My main subjects are Science and Technology. I often need to do
diagrams and drawings and 3D shapes and things with the kids
and that's a very difficult thing to try and teach those types of
drawings and content to kids without, you know being used to
having my whiteboard to draw. So the virtual or the technical, app
of the whiteboard was stunning, especially the fact that it's an
infinite whiteboard. I can do something on the one part, zoom out,
move it to the side, get moving on the other part and I could send
screenshots and PDFs of that to the kids, which was really actually
a fantastic resource and I enjoy using that still today.
The biggest feature that I think Microsoft Teams has is one that
encompasses the 21st century skills that we teach, which is
collaboration. Microsoft has this feature where you can have
breakaway rooms and various subgroups where when we are
doing a task in class, we are able to break down into smaller
groups and complete the tasks in that way, where we are collaborating.
One of the biggest problems was the follow up of work where this
live page in Class Notebook allowed me to engage and to
have immediate feedback and that's what we as teachers were
looking for, was a solution where we could find immediate
feedback and that live page assisted us.
So a specific feature on Teams that really changed my life is the
Assignments tab that's available. I mean, coming from a teacher
where we used to get 10 million assignments in on paper,
now it's so much easier for my kids just to go on upload their assignment,
I immediately know that they've handed in, they haven't handed in.
and I can mark it on there and send it back if they need to correct it.
I think one of the things that is really cool about Teams is that
it enables me to connect to a chat or to a meeting with the
kids through more than one device.
I do think the students adjusted a lot quicker than us as educators did,
despite the fact that we had training sessions and practice sessions
and the students hadn't, very early on they were helping their
teachers as well as helping each other.
The challenge, in fact, that came when they had to manage their
time as in a classroom, the teacher would be the one that tells them
when to get up and to prepare for the next lesson.
Whereas during remote learning, they had to solely do that by
themselves and take responsibility of the time that they had.
So within a few months of a heavy lockdown, and within a few
months of online teaching, we started to see that the wellbeing of
our students had to become a high priority.
To tackle this issue, what we had created was Microsoft Forms
where the students had to check in and how these Microsoft Forms
were structured is that they had very sad emojis to very happy
emojis where the learners had to click before they entered a lesson so that
we could see how they were doing and how their wellbeing was.
At Abbotts College, we have a homework session at the end of each day,
which also incorporates me entering sessions, which helps to guide
our students in their careers and also check in on their wellbeing.
So the chat function on Teams was a really big help, especially
during the pandemic because we had those kids that didn't want to
speak up in a lesson.
So where a student may not be comfortable raising their hand and
asking for help in class after the lesson, they can pop into the
chats and send a private message to that teacher with whatever
the query was, whatever they didn't understand.
And then also, something as basic as the applause function that was
added to the Teams, if a child would for instance be presenting something
and the other kids would applaud that really helped them a lot.
So like in the very first part of lockdown we used Kahoot, we used
Wakelet, we used Flipgrid quite significantly, as it was an easy
way to get the kids to bring content through to us in a different form
that's not just a word document that they're uploading. So it made
it a bit more creative and gave them more freedom to upload
things, which was really nice.
I am using myQuiz, as a third party application integrated into
Microsoft Teams, to first of all gauge the prior knowledge of my students
before I start with a topic and then I can design my lesson from there.
The first thing I would add would be tabs. I am that person that
when I take my computer to IT, they complain about how much I have open
I have always got so many things open on my device but with Teams
I can be in the mark sheets and need to go and check something somewhere else
in one of the other folders. I've got to leave the mark sheet to go and do that.
So, being able to have multiple sections of Teams open at once
would be amazing.
Initially, it was a really difficult time and it wasn't easy for
students to adapt, but I found that Microsoft Teams really made it
accessible and manageable for students to take on online learning.