Thousands of Miles Away

For the past few weeks, we have had a student who is visiting family in India and will continue to be there a few more weeks.  How can a teacher have that many lessons prepared for a student who will be gone?  Or, how can a teacher catch up a student after weeks of being away from the actual classroom?  The beauty of a Blended Learning Classroom that has a prominent digital component, is that student can continue right along with a majority of the lessons. 

So…greetings from India!   

Here is one of our 5^th graders, Trishul.  He has been able to take assessments, participate in kidblogs, work on writing pieces, and complete reading lessons.  Now, not everything we do in our classroom is digitally based, but a large majority is accessible through his Chromebook.  Therefore, Trishul is still a participant in our classroom and will be able to fall right in step when he returns in a few weeks. 

We see this happen daily in our classroom with students who are absent or sick at home.  They can see what we are doing.  They email one of the three teachers and ask what they can do at home, or they send us a message through Edmodo.  I’m not sure when I have ever had a sick student email me in the middle of the day to see what school work they can do at home?!  They want to do it!  They truly want to learn and participate even when they could be watching the Disney Channel while snuggling up with their favorite pillow.  Amazing!  It is so encouraging to see this motivation and high level of engagement in our students.  

Stay tuned for more postings from Behind the Scenes @ AD!