So... how do I...
The intent of this page is to provide tutorials on how to use, access, or create with some of the various tools and programs available, to make navigating this new world of online teaching as straightforward as possible. Just remember... the tallest mountain is climbed one step at a time and no one starts out being an expert at anything! Dive in, be brave, explore and experiment, on your own time and in your own unique way. You are already an amazing educator and this is just another opportunity to be even better...
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Zoom
Zoom is an excellent tool that is very easy to use. The tutorial to the left here is a good basic beginner tutorial. It is short and includes simple instructions to get you started, and shows you how to set up your class meeting, how to manage your participants, and how to share your screen. One of the features that is helpful about this particular tutorial is the fact that the presenter makes some glitchy little mistakes and pops back from them without losing her stride. Good modeling! There are more advanced tutorials on ZOOM available on YouTube, but this one will definitely get you started. |
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Google Classroom
Google Classroom is an online platform that allows you to actually create classes for your students to "attend". It is a Learning Management System of LMS that has proven very successful and popular with teachers and students. You can add students to your classes easily, and you can give assignments, provide content, make links to learning for your students, communicate effortlessly, and so much more. More tutorials are available online, through YouTube, that will help you fine tune your Google Classroom experience, but this provides a great beginner orientation. |
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Khan Academy
Khan Academy is an excellent resource for teaching across many subject areas. While it is particularly well known for its Math programs, Khan Academy also provides literacy programs and excellent courses in a wide variety of subject areas. This tutorial provides a good introduction to using Khan, and should help you get set up easily and effortlessly. Khan is highly recommended by other teachers, and should help make your shift to online teaching much smoother for you and for your students. Some schools have worked with Khan's Math program exclusively, and seen a marked improvement in math skills - something to keep in mind when in-class instruction begins again! |
Website design can be very straightforward and a website will provide you with avery comprehensive tool to deliver instruction and to communicate with your students. A website is incredibly versatile, allowing users to add video and text freely. There are a number of excellent website design programs out there. Three of the most popular are Wordpress, Wix, and Weebly. Two options, Wordpress and Weebly, are provided below, but YouTube provides multiple tutorials on website design with these and other website building tools. Weebly provides educators with the option of a free teacher site that includes free websites for your students, too. Weebly is very user friendly, with more options for adding features than most other web builders.
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Blogging is an excellent tool for communicating with your students, and it allows them to share their ideas with you, giving them a journal style platform that can serve as an excellent tool for language arts development! Below is a more generic video on Blogging as an instructional online tool, and then a shorter video on Blogger which is part of the Google suite of tools and available to any of your students with gmail.
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But wait! There's more! There are any number of other fun and helpful applications and programs that people use for educational purposes, to facilitate communication and instruction when teaching online, and for content creation. Truthfully, it would be impossible to list them all, so if what you are looking for isn't here, do a google search - you may be surprised at the wonderful tools you discover.
Some programs listed below provide a platform for remote learning, and some applications provide new ways to share content with students. For some reason, kids often seem to absorb new technology easily, while adults take a little longer to acquire new tech. That's okay. Bite off only as much as you can chew at any one time, and take another bite when you are ready! Here are a few "bites" you might want to try at some point, but no worry, no hurry!
Some programs listed below provide a platform for remote learning, and some applications provide new ways to share content with students. For some reason, kids often seem to absorb new technology easily, while adults take a little longer to acquire new tech. That's okay. Bite off only as much as you can chew at any one time, and take another bite when you are ready! Here are a few "bites" you might want to try at some point, but no worry, no hurry!
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