Brave New World

Now that we are all old pros at MS Teams meetings, and a weekly schedule of CLTs has been in place for almost a month, we are gradually adding Office Hours to the mix. By the end of this week each of us will have logged an hour on the Canvas Conference feature, mostly in two 30 minute segments. This is all new technology to most of us.

On MS Teams we've learned to mute the audio to improve the overall quality of the feed, and also how to mute the video when we don't want to be seen. Some folks have installed backgrounds of their choice; others have chosen a permanent profile picture. On Canvas Conference we are learning how to make the students visible to one another, and not just to the teacher.

Some folks are using Seesaw, others Flip Grid. Still others have learned how to insert video of themselves directing students through directions on their Canvas page. One teacher continues to post videos about how to use captions in You Tube. These are all amazing strides that folks are making in the name of asynchronous teaching and learning.

If anyone had asked us two months ago about any of this, we might have responded with a blank stare or shrugged shoulders. So I just want to take a moment, here, to think about what has been achieved in so little time. And to breathe. Because life and learning is changing too quickly right now, and sometimes we just need to take a few deep breaths to catch up with ourselves.