Professional Learning: Gearing Up for #Remote Learning

As I sit here with my laptop perched in my lap, I hear birds singing and a car tumble down our steep road. I can see the light start to peek out behind puffy clouds resting on the tops of buildings and mountains. Today seems to be like any other day here in Brazil, but if I were to turn on my TV or dare to look at my internet news feed, I would experience a different reality–one that is gripped with fear. Fear of catching a virus. Covid19. You would think that this is some kind of storyline from World War Z, a once-popular zombie apocalypse movie in which people scramble to contain a terrible virus. I don’t think Covid19 is going to lead to the destruction of mankind, but we sure are behaving in a very cautious manner.

So, here we are, as educators, in the midst of figuring out how we can do remote learning. For many of us, even the most tech-savvy, we are grappling with the lack of experience with this kind of learning. As I write this post, our school isn’t facing the reality of doing this quite yet, but we are preparing for when learning goes online. But I live in Belo Horizonte, tucked in the mountains of Minas Gerais, where we only have 1 case within the whole city.  In Sao Paulo, the city that has the most cases of coronaviruses, they face other challenges. Our biggest and most extraordinary conference in this region is set to take place next week–AASSA Educators’ Conference that has educational rockstars like John Hattie, Cindy Moss and George Couros who will be keynote speakers. Yours truly was going to present as well. I have never felt so excited about a conference in my life.

But we received a notice last week that it’s …..getting canceled? Nope, it’s going virtual!! My first reaction was surprise. Woah–kudos to them for not outright canceling! I loved how the organization was really taking the lead on moving forward, despite schools’ travel restrictions. Of course, I was bummed that we weren’t going to Sao Paulo. Traveling and networking are some of my favorite part of these events. But as we sat in our principles office, it became clear, as the leader of professional learning, it was my job to be a cheerleader. (For anyone who knows me, this actually isn’t a stretch.) I was eager to turn lemons into lemonade.  Because our school had actually created Professional Development days on our school calendar in order for the bulk of us to attend. We were going to have our staff come on-site in order to ensure that they were distraction-free and had access to technology. I started brainstorming ideas of how we were going to make it fun and engaging.

But on Friday (the 13th, no less) I saw the email from AASSA with the subject line that said: AASSA 2020 Educators’ Conference – CANCELED

I blinked. Did I read that right? So I clicked to read:

We have continued to monitor the developments related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The situation is quickly evolving and schools in our region are attending to pressing demands that make participating virtually in a conference during this time extremely challenging.  Therefore, the AASSA 2020 Educators’ Conference is canceled.

When I read that my mouth dropped and my heart sank. it means that there are 2 unplanned PD days. Now, what are we going to do? Cancel those days and head to the beach? Hahaha–not a chance! With over 57 countries currently calling off school, my principal informed me that we are going to prepare for what now seems inevitable. Remote Learning.

The good news is that we have been preparing for remote learning for a while. Kasey Bell posted a really helpful blog post called: Coronavirus Closures? Online Learning Tips for Teachers and Schools that helped our school to create an Essential Agreement with our teachers for remote learning. For our lower school, it meant that we needed to get really good at SeeSaw and at Google Meets–the 2 platforms that we were going to focus on. (Less is more!)

Serendipitously, I had a recent chat with Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, and she inspired me with some ideas. So with that in mind, I started scrambling to get these 2 days planned.

My current thinking is that during our PD days we will play BINGO. My principal always asks me when I go to him with ideas–“so what are your goals?”  So, with that in mind, the goals of my PD BINGO are as follows:

1. For teachers to PRACTICE online collaboration (with Google Meets)
2. For teachers to LEARN more about remote learning through social media and blogs.
3. For teachers to DOCUMENT their learning.
4. For teachers to NETWORK with other educators outside our organization.
5. For grade levels to feel PREPARED for our first day of remote learning.
6. And most importantly, for everyone to have FUN while we are in the midst of stressful times.

Here is the draft of the BINGO:

Even though this isn’t at the same level of awesomeness that an in-person, live conference is, I do hope that this helps our staff to feel less stressful by getting prepared, connected and feeling competent with using the tools that we have designated for our remote learning. This also provides a window into any technical hiccups that we might encounter and allow teachers the support they need before we actually go live with remote learning.

I know that most schools haven’t had the luxury of preparing teachers like we might have. It’s not even a guarantee that we will go remote. But the pressure is on the local and national authorities to decide. And when they do, we intend to be ready!