Tag: online learning

Brain Breaks and Birdhouses: What I Learned from 1st-2nd Grade Virtual Maker Camp

If you asked me six months ago how I envisioned summer break, I’d probably have told you about swimming at pools and lakes, hanging out with my kids, and, best of all, the days my kids would be spending together at summer camp. Thanks to #covid19, most of that isn’t happening. Instead, my 7-year-old has been doing a virtual KSU iTeach Makercamp this summer, and he’s had fun making things like birdcages and musical instruments and robot claws (and 2yo has had fun building his own versions too). So what can we learn from a virtual summer camp for kidsContinue readingBrain Breaks and Birdhouses: What I Learned from 1st-2nd Grade Virtual Maker Camp

woman lecturing in auditorium

Seven Great Resources for Moving Your Class Online

I’ve written a couple posts about keeping it simple and thinking about equity as we move our higher ed classes online due to COVID-19 closures. But I wanted to take a few minutes to share a few of my favorite resources I’ve found that I think are great for helping consider the logistics, ethics, and pedagogy of moving courses online. I’ll list a few of my key takeaways from each “Your Suddenly Online Class Could Actually Be a Relief” by Alexandra L. Milsom use as few tools as possible and go easy on yourself maintain community as best you canContinue readingSeven Great Resources for Moving Your Class Online

mug and laptop on corner of white table

Keep it simple, y’all – moving your class online

As we all face down the likelihood of moving courses online this semester for the covid-19 outbreak, it’s easy to get caught up in the overwhelm of hundreds of pedagogical options and the glitter of new tech tools. Our passion for teaching drives us to constantly innovate, to make our classes better and more engaging. After all, Pedagogy Playground is born of this impulse. But truly innovative, engaging online classes take weeks or even months to develop, and we don’t have the luxury of that right now. On top of the time crunch (and for many of us still, theContinue readingKeep it simple, y’all – moving your class online

Hands typing on cell phone

An Equitable Transition to Online Learning – Flexibility, Low Bandwidth, Cell Phones, and more

Discussions about temporarily converting our face-to-face courses to an online environment have been circling both my university and the larger academic community in the past few weeks. As large institutions like UW, Stanford, and Princeton prepare to make these shifts, it’s likely to expect that other colleges and universities will follow suit. The first suggestions I heard for this shift were those of operating a large lecture or discussion class via Zoom, synchronous with the time the class usually would have met. Foremost on mind then have been questions of equity. What if some students (or faculty) don’t have accessContinue readingAn Equitable Transition to Online Learning – Flexibility, Low Bandwidth, Cell Phones, and more

css.php