No More Snow Days – #ISTEsla20 Wk 1 Day 3

The following post has been completed as part of my personal reflection as I work through the ISTE Summer Learning Academy #ISTEsla20 Any images, tables, or direct quotes (as indicated with the appropriate formatting) are provided from the specific course or webinar and can be credited to: ISTE Summer Learning Academy. (2020). https://summerlearningacademy.iste.org/

Mike Ribble, ISTE Summer Learning Academy, #ISTEsla20, Kirsten Thompson, MVSD, Mountain View School Division

Week 1 – Day 3 includes a webinar that is vey applicable to the Canadian winters entitled “No More Snow Days”. It is facilitated by Mike Ribble and is described as follows:

“Snow days that disrupted in-person learning used to give students a break from school, but now technology is changing the way we look at education and our need to communicate and collaborate even when school is disrupted. During a global pandemic, the ability to connect with educators when physically distant is a critical need, but it must be available for all. Equity of access with not only devices but internet resources is a critical need for students and educators to continue the learning process when they cannot be together.“

Main Takeaways

Equality vs. equity in education
How is your school striving for equity, equality or both?
- In MVSD, from a tech perspective, this includes aspects like our device loaning and free wifi (both of which can be improved upon as we learn more).
- We also partnered with Tech MB and the MB Metis Federation to help get devices into the homes of our families permanently
- Our in-school computer technicians monitored and responded to family/student tech support concerns to ensure their home learning was not hindered by tech concerns.
What is your school doing to assist students to have stable Internet access opportunities?
- In MVSD we have established free wifi hotspots in each of our 7 communities on the exterior of our school buildings. We have met with local providers (MTS, Rogers, Telus) regarding further options but nothing is available yet to meet our rural families.
- I am currently working with representatives from ICTC, Tech MB, and BU to complete provincial research on the extent of connectivity access. It is our hope to use this information to assist local government and providers to increase access.

Was your district 1:1 with devices prior to the pandemic? Will you be 1:1 this fall? What differences do you expect?
- Pre-pandemic MVSD was not 1:1 (although some individual schools were close), nor did our students take the devices home.
- We were able to launch device-loaning later into the suspension of classes as a “trial” on what this type of programming would look like in our context
- The ICT team is prepared to start up a full device loaning program in the fall if it were required (we don’t yet know what our teaching scenario will be)
How are you or your school preparing students and our community to become better digital citizens?
- Provincially we work on infusing the Literacy with ICT Continuum (LwICT) which builds in digital citizenship skills for K-12 students
- During the suspension of classes we previously held a Tech Q and A on our divisional Facebook page for parents/families that shared resources to assist our families in this area.
- We have also held Social Media 4 Parents events that assisted families in their understanding of these platforms.
- It is our hope to continue this type of outreach in the 20/21 school year.

Questions

Have you read Mike’s book: The Digital Citizenship Handbook for School Leaders?
Is home-internet access the school/division responsibility? provincial responsibility?

General PD Thoughts

The video webinars start off with “theme music” which is a nice touch to get student attention.
Providing accessibility options like troubleshooting FAQs, recorded instructions, closed captioning, chat transcripts, etc can be helpful for learners.
Today’s webinar shared the following ed tech tools: Mentimeter.
Thank you to Mike for sharing this evening!

Read all of the #ISTEsla20 posts: