Don’t beat yourself up

I am not an expert in online or remote learning. I have a You Tube channel and I use Edmodo. Both support my classroom practice, it is not online learning. I’ve never trained or done PD for online teaching, I’ve never had to teach online. I’ve always been in front of a class.

Next week we get four days to prepare learning to be done remotely on a large scale, something most of us have never done. Teachers are conscientious people and will want to do their best in what is very unique circumstance but we should not beat ourselves up if it does not go to plan. We should not expect what we provide parents to replace (anywhere near) what we do on a daily basis face to face. We should also go out of our way not to overwhelm parents.

I really like this quote from an article called The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning by Rachael Bath. Rachael is not a world famous guru she lives in Victoria and has an interest in education technologies.

"Well planned online learning experiences are meaningfully different from learning offered online in response to a crisis or disaster." Rachael Bath

We will do our best but what we are not doing is implementing a practice we have had years to develop and have a deep understanding of. We are preparing online and remote learning in response to a crisis which none of us has ever experienced before. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t quite nail it.