Teaching at home during the Coronavirus has made educators and professionals discover new ways to teach students. We can all say that the education system will see many changes in the ways that students are being taught, especially as we continue to learn various ways to incorporate technology into teaching. Not only that, it connects all kinds of educators together, it connects schools and communities together.
To all kinds of educators and professionals, we continue to collaborate as a team more than ever. We continue to have open communication between each other and with our students and their families. As a paraprofessional, I have been supporting and assisting my classroom teacher with ways of teaching our students through Google Classroom. I highly recommend using Google Classroom for everything. Think of Google Classroom as the classroom’s website. Google Classroom serves for activities and announcements. Also, I have been supporting with my teacher our students and their families through Google Meet, a video-chat meeting built-in through Google. Support continues not just in the classroom, but outside as well.
Teachers do a lot of teaching, but people still forget how important the paraprofessionals are too. Paraprofessionals are also educators in the classroom. With the work of the teacher and paraprofessionals, classroom activities and assignments can be used in Google Classroom. As mentioned before, use Google Classroom as the classroom’s website. With the teacher’s permission, paraprofessionals can create lesson videos that are personalized to the students’ needs. For example, Google has Screencastify, which can be used to record videos on your laptop, desktop, phone, etc. Along with that, Google has Google Canvas, their own virtual whiteboard. Plus, we can all research classroom activities and videos from YouTube based on the learning objectives. The important part of working in the education system is that communication and collaboration are key to impact students’ learning.
In virtual education, three key factors are needed inorder for good outcome of student’s’ learning: support, communication, and collaboration. Set up conferences with students and/or their families via Google Meet and/or Zoom. Discuss with teachers, paraprofessionals, case managers, school psychologists, school principals, and other professionals to communicate, collaborate, and increase professional development via Google Meet and/or Zoom. There will always be more that all kinds of educators and professionals will learn because the education system is changing to improve students’ learning and quality of life. We are all life-long learners in our world today.
Here are the various technology equipment to make students’ learning more interactive: Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, Screencastify, Google Canvas, Pear Deck, and Boom Cards
This blog post was originally published on Michelle’s blog Exceptional Shell. More posts like this one can be found by visiting her site!
