Online learning has quickly become our ‘new norm’. With the pandemic hitting us with new waves all of the time, online learning has become a part of our educational system.
As both a teacher and a parent, online learning has been the cause of many headaches, extra glasses of fermented grapes, sighing loudly, slapping my palms down on my desk and plenty of eye-rolling.
Keeping a positive mindset as mentioned in my blog – The Silver Lining – A Positive Mindset is what kept me going.
Back when we first went online in March 2020 (that seems like so long ago) the thought of the boys being kind of homeschooled felt amazing. Online learning began and I was amazed at the many impressive online learning tools that my boys could use.
They were loving doing their lessons while sitting in their PJs and so was I.
I was able to see exactly what they were doing and was on hand to help them out. As a busy teacher myself, I didn’t always feel that I had a complete grip on where my boys were academically and I had some feelings of guilt around that. #
I mean, I’m a teacher, surely I should know exactly what all of my children could and could not do!
Yeah right. I know better than to put that kind of pressure on myself now, but back then I did not.
As time went on, we got into the groove of things and found our own little routine.
We had our favourite websites, which we still use now, our own timetable and a little reward system to keep the boys motivated.
(I’ll share these for those of you that are interested at the end of this post.)
Online Learning from a different Continent.
August 2021 was when our adventure abroad began, well kind of!
I had officially started my new job. But we were stuck in the UK and had to start online learning again but this time from a completely different continent to the one the pupils were actually in.
Likewise, for the boys, they had their lessons online, they were being taught by their teacher who was in Qatar.
It was crazy!
This was not an easy task. School in Qatar started at 6:30 am and they were 3 hours ahead of us. You can do the Math! The things we do hey…
Fast forward past all the moving abroad drama to where we are now.
Online learning is still happening. (Cases here went up) I am at work but teaching online and my boys are at home joining all their lessons on Microsoft Teams.
The amount of voice notes I get sent throughout the day is hilarious. These range from food requests to snitching on each other for the most random of things.
“Mom, Ciah was staring at me to annoy me!”
“Mom, Marne took my pencil.”
“Mom, the cat did a poo on the rug!”
I should write a song using only the voice notes I have received haha.
Online learning can suck sometimes.
I know that my boys are not getting the same learning experience they would do in school. Their interaction with the teacher and peers has been reduced and they just don’t seem to have the same level of gumption to complete things whilst sitting in front of a screen all day.
They are becoming great at procrastinating as are the students that I teach.
I find myself asking the same questions both at home and at work.
“Have you submitted your task?” Followed by, “Why have you not submitted your task?” The excuses I get from them all are great.
“No Wi-FI.” Yet you’re using the internet right now to send me this message lol
“My laptop died!” This is my favourite of them all. I respond with, “So no plug sockets right!” Usually followed by an awkward silence.
I must find the humour in it all. Otherwise, I’ll turn into Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda and lock them all in the cupboard.
It is not all bad though.
Even though it has its challenges, online learning can also be amazing. The boys have really developed their IT skills.
They can navigate their way around Teams and One Note so well, it is impressive. These IT skills, I am sure will benefit them in the future.
We have had to use innovative ways to teach our pupils and those that were not technologically evolved have learned things they never would have.
I have used some amazing online resources in my lessons like Nearpod https://nearpod.com and Kahoot https://kahoot.com/. These are things I would never have known about if we never embarked on this online learning journey.
Things are going to keep changing, we can’t predict what will happen in the future.
Will schooling go back to being 100% ‘normal’?
If it does, will we end up back online again?
Who knows?
All we can do is keep moving with the times, open our minds to learning new things, try to be positive and be kind to ourselves and each other.
Whatever happens, I’ll do whatever I can for my children and my students.
I’m no Miss Honey but I’m still pretty damn nice.
I’ll write again soon but for now bye…
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Here are the websites we use for some great online activities.
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