With these funds I will…CREATE GREAT ONLINE TEACHING AND LEARNING!

We now know that all schools in San Diego county will start the school year online, and maybe go on remotely further into the coming school year. During a recent intensive online teacher training, focused heavily on best practices for teaching remotely, I was able to envision myself teaching from my own home office, and to reflect on what I am going to need to make great learning experiences possible for my students. Any class needs to be taught with the varied learning styles and processes of the students in mind.  I will be teaching Special Education, where flexibility in how I present the contents to my students is even more crucial, using text, voice, modeling, diagrams, videos, sets of slides and offering constant ways for them to interact with and be active participants in the lessons. I realized that, to be able to create an engaging and effective Zoom session, hopping between different applications while seeing the faces and body language of my students and keeping an eye on what’s coming next in the lesson and my own materials, I’ll need an external monitor – 2 screens is a minimum!

At the same time, I want to continue using a traditional white board, as a more flexible tool to respond to everything that happens during a class that wasn’t in the initial plan, to capture students’ contributions as they emerge, and for all the tasks that need visual modeling.

Online teaching means more time sitting at the computer, engrossed in intense activities that tend to make you forget to keep good posture… What to do about our aching backs?? I noticed during these recent weeks of training that alternating between a (borrowed!) exercise ball and my usual chair was really helping me keep my back in functional order. I want to keep it that way, to be able to do my best teaching!

That’s how I came up with some priorities to equip my classroom-at-home:

• An external monitor (about $110 for a basic model with sound output)
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• An adjustable white board that I can place on a table, at the level of my computer camera ($48)
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• 2 sets of flip chart paper ($26)
• 2 sets of dry erase markers ($16)
• 2 sets of Sharpie markers ($17)
• An adult-size, firm seating exercise ball ($44)

Back Up Plan