School Closure!

I should have been recording my patterns, thoughts, attitudes, etc., from Day 1, but...well, I didn't.

But this morning--Day 6, for my district--I saw some comments on an article about schools that made me want to do a time diary of my day.

Herewith, then, Day 6 of the COVID-19 School Closure

Didn’t realize the smart phone’s sound was still on, so awakened at 4 AM by notification of an email received, on my school email, since I’ve loaded that as my only email login on my phone.  That way, any work related email (and work only) gets to me immediately.  In this case, it’s one of the dozen or so daily reminders of all the different online learning opportunities out there.  

Can’t fall back asleep, so I arise…to work on the online opportunity I’ve already got, namely, the one I’ve been creating for the last few years, and am now adjusting for the sake of not having in-person time with students for discussion, explanation, support, etc.

Double check the parent-accessible web page where I’ve summarized the day’s work I’ve posted for their students on Google Classroom.  Since parents only get emailed summaries of what’s on the Classroom site, I post what material (documents, links, etc.) I can on the publicly accessible web site.  

Check to see if students have responded to any of the recent work posted on Classroom.  Respond and give feedback to any posted work.

Post a Classroom reminder to students that at 9 AM we’ll experiment with a live online interactive activity (Quizlet Live) covering our recent readings.  Double check the Quizlet flashcard set.

Collect, prepare and load some extra material for tomorrow’s daily work in the special School Closure Activities assortment.  

Pore over the calendar in consideration of the timeline for our on-going curriculum work (reading and working with Red Scarf Girl).  Upload the next set of work in the sequence.  Begin creating a quiz over the book.  Ideally, this quiz will show whether students read the book, and whether they’re ready for me to give them the culmination work.  

And it’s 5:30 AM now.

(That was about 75 minutes)

6:55

Upload web sites and instructions for students to write Haiku or Diamante poems about the school closure.  Our district is focusing on Social Emotional Learning this year.  That means we’re trying to be mindful to remember that each student has a particular social and emotional makeup which affects their learning process, and on which they imprint their learning.  And we’re encouraging and modeling social emotional self-awareness and self-discipline, so students can practice those skills, too.  

The school closure adds some layers of difficulty in all this.  Students are going to have different social and emotional responses to the closure, they’re going to have issues arise that would have been different had they been in school, and we are not face to face with them each day, so we face limitations in what we can do.  

A poem about school closure isn’t much…but I’m trying.

(about 25 minutes)

8:05

Collect, organize, and load material for bonus School Closure Activities for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Update parent-accessible web site.

Score a few responses to a short answer question on a reading quiz from the last reading set.

(about 20 minutes)

8:55

Begin online quiz game, about Red Scarf Girl material.  A lot of posting—to the Google Classroom site—of codes, instructions, updates, etc., in order to play the game.  It works well, though.  About 45 minutes of playing.

(about 50 minutes)

10:15

Google keeps telling me that it won’t go to certain Google pages (like my Classroom) because it is getting verification messages back (when it tries to communicate with my computer) that someone might be attacking me at the moment, trying to steal access somehow.  So I wait, and logoff, shut down, etc.

10:55

Back on!

Review and respond to student work in School Closure Activities set.

Collect student-generated quiz questions for Red Scarf Girl, begin creating quiz.

Start creating new Quizlet set for another round of Quizlet Live later this week.

(about 35 minutes)

11:30

Lunch and some non-school business.

1:30

Respond to student and parent emails.

Review student work submitted through Google Classroom.

Review and score NewsELA work.

(about 45 minutes)

So far today, a few minutes more than 4 hours.  I still need to record and load a short video, check on student work done this evening, and double check on the uploads for tomorrow.  But I don't want to do anymore work on this diary today.