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Digital Learning Guide: Maintain Communication

This guide was created as part of emergency planning in case we need to close school for weeks at a time

Have any questions or need support? Schedule time to meet virtually with Chip:  https://calendly.com/schase/

Develop a System for Ongoing Communication

Regardless if some students are unable to attend school, or school is canceled entirely, it is important to maintain one-on-one conversations with students. This communication can be synchronous or asynchronous. 

Synchronous Learning — Synchronous learning involves online studies that are conducted with the aid of chat rooms, or video chats. It’s called synchronous learning because the system allows students to ask their teacher or fellow students questions instantly through instant messaging or video chats.

Asynchronous Learning — Asynchronous learning involves coursework delivered by web, email, and message boards that are posted in online forums. Students do not have access to content at a specific time. A benefit of asynchronous learning is that you’re able to be self-paced.

 

Managing Notifications

Many students and teachers can be overwhelmed by the onslaught of notifications in learning management systems. Manage your notifications by using the settings within each app.

Setting Up Discussions on Canvas

516 - Discussions Overview from Instructure Canvas Community on Vimeo.

Setting Up Discussions on Google Classroom

Using Google Voice to Communicate

Google Voice allows teachers to create a private cell phone number to communicate with families.

Systems for Synchronous Communication

Synchronous communication may be hard to maintain effectively throughout a long closure, but one strategy might be to host virtual office hours. Learn more about these tools on the Synchronous Learning page of this Digital Learning Guide.

You can do this over phone, text, or using tools like the ones below:

If you are planning to use Zoom (with students or with families), you MUST follow these steps: 
  1. Don’t share your Zoom link or code on social media
  2. Set a meeting password
  3. Create a waiting room (when doing this, it is helpful to have a co-host who watches the waiting room throughout the meet so latecomers can be added)
  4. Set screen sharing to “host only”
  5. Turn off the annotation feature
  6. Restrict other features as needed in host controls
  7. Disable “allow removed participants to rejoin”

Using Hapara's Email Tools

Ideas for how to use Gmail Viewer to support one-on-one virtual communication:

  1. From the Gmail: Inbox tab, make sure you have sent an email to each student for the day. If not, use the Email dropdown tool directly from this page

     
  2. From the Sent tab, easily identify which students have not sent a response to your daily message. You can easily add your name to filter out other messages, and only see when students last sent you a message.

Remind