A few days ago, my district of Medford, MA voted to start the school year remotely. Although I’ve been curating remote teaching tools all summer, I only recently dove deep into my email folders and Twitter bookmarks to figure out whether anything I’d collected might be useful in my day-to-day teaching this fall. Here’s what I found that I believe is worth a share:
Synchronous teaching:
Since Medford is a Google district, I plan on using Google Slides to help organize my synchronous lessons. Even if it’s one slide with the agenda and maybe a link or two, I think creating and sharing this with students will be helpful and help me stay organized. For more involved lessons there’s a lot you can do with Google Slides that I recently discovered. If you’re planning on using Slides too, here’s a video with add-on recommendations. Here’s a massive collection of slide templates as well.
I’ve come across Whiteboard.fi and can see myself using it in class. It allows a teacher to present a problem on a digital whiteboard and then gives students their own whiteboard to show work and/or answers. The teacher can then see each student whiteboard but students cannot see each other’s. Here’s an intro video to learn more.
Another whiteboard resource is Ziteboard. This one seems to be better for direct instruction and student collaboration versus Whiteboard.fi which seems better for practice. It came highly recommended by another educator and I’m looking forward to testing it out.
Another popular collaboration and whiteboard resource is Jamboard. Many teachers love this one. It seems to help teachers create engaging lessons, easy to save for future use and easy to share with students. Here’s a how-to video.
Asynchronous teaching:
I plan on having my students use a few different sites and tools for asynchronous learning. The main site I’ll use will be the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) site that is the online component of the math program purchased by my district.
Typically, though, one program’s online component is not enough. For further independent practice I plan on utilizing sites like Khan Academy, DeltaMath, and Desmos. (DeltaMath and Desmos would be useful for math teachers only.) Although I’m familiar with Khan Academy and have used it in class before, I will have to learn more about DeltaMath and Desmos. Many math teachers I know use both regularly.
Loom is a neat application I discovered that allows you to record your screen with your face in the bottom corner for a more personal video experience. I’ve tested it out and love how easy it is to use. I plan on using it for a “welcome” video. I hope to also use it to make videos of myself modeling math problems or giving students directions for asynchronous assignments.
Other:
I believe all of the above is free. Last night, however, I caved and bought myself a new desk and chair. Here are some other items on my wishlist: monitor for dual screening, microphone to ensure high sound quality for my students, document camera, iPad & Apple Pencil. As with the online tools, these tech items were recommended by other teachers.
Lastly, two coworkers and I have created a document to organize the resources we’ve found. Here it is if you’re interested. I plan on using this document to do a bit more research into what may possibly help me teach from home this upcoming year.