Back to School Stats

School, hybrid style, started on Wednesday. 

Stats felt like the way to start reflecting back over the week: 

• 28,218 step, mostly at school, 2 days of which were over 10K (and this is from a girl who wrestled with a raging new case of sciatica this August, on top of 2 bad knees)

• Wednesday I taught sixteen 15-minute tech lessons to 8 classes (8 in the morning to the hybrid half that came, 8 in the afternoon to the other half) covering how to find our "hybrid home-day" zoom links (which for us are on Bitmoji Boards) and also how to login to Clever (a single sign on platform that allows for "1 stop shopping").

• Thursday, I taught ten 35-minute tech lessons to our 1st-- 5th graders with computers so they could practice logging into Clever, their Zoom links, and either Seesaw or our learning management system which we are newly using for upper elementary. Add in wiping 5-9 computers between each session to thoroughly disinfect.

• Friday, I repeated my Thursday schedule for the other half of the children in this hybrid situation.

• Total number of lessons taught in 3 days: 36

• Parent Zooms for new remote-only parents: 1 (approx. 1 hour in length)

• Number of emails to the tech help desk (which I am a part of): Too many to count

• Number of days it took me to completely lose my voice: 3 (although, by the end of 2, it already was on the major decline toward being highly hoarse)

• Add in, our Swivls have just arrived on campus. (Goodness, at least 25 or so.) These will help bring our at home remote learners into our class alongside with the half of the class that is on campus every other day--so there's teacher training ahead too. 

In this Covid-new-reality world, sometimes it feels like a race against the clock. We are working like the dickens to try to get our students fully acclimated to all the portals and platforms so they know what they are doing for the "if/when we go remote." Hopefully it's at least after we all know which end is up and what we are doing. (Kids & teachers alike!!)

This certainly is a school year like no other. I'm certainly glad I have the 3-day weekend ahead to physically, mentally, emotionally, and vocally recover. Especially since more tech training days for students are ahead and scheduled for next week. Luckily not quite so progressively packed, but it'll make for another full week again. The joys of being a technology teacher (which I do really love, but I do sorely miss the good ole days prior to 2020 teaching)!

For all the teachers and students out there (and the parents who are navigating their children's learning as well).... Give yourself some grace this fall, and just know, we all know how hard each and everyone of you are working to do this all with masks on, with the aroma of soap and hand sanitizer in the air, trying to socially distance while also helping yourself, your students, and your colleagues in this new time of learning. 

I'm ending with an image I made for my homeroom teachers and shared with them the night before school started--was that only 4 days ago?

Images: Back to School Statistics created at www.canva.com using the graph from https://www.cleanpng.com/png-united-states-bar-chart-progress-chart-carter-comm-3903623/preview.html. First Day of School Bitmoji Board created using the Bitmoji app and Google Slides.