Sink or swim, 2020-21 technology shoved us into ‘deep end’
The 2020-21 school year has been one of the most unusual ones in many educators' careers. However, despite its challenges, last school year presented some rare opportunities in the area of educational technology.
What's the fastest way to teach someone to swim? Some would say push them into the deep end. I'm sure that's what last year felt like for many educators, students and families. Remote and hybrid models of learning forced teachers, students and family members into the world of videoconferencing, online assignments, remote monitoring tools and many other potentially new environments.
In the South-Western City School District, we had been planning for the possibility of a future one-to-one Chromebook rollout for several years, so we were positioned well for this transition as we were thrust into the deep end of the pool.
Although we had been using Chromebooks out of carts during school hours, we were able to provide devices for home use, too. Every family wanting a Chromebook for a student to use at home was provided with a device.
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Once devices were distributed, the work required by our teachers and curriculum team to move instruction to an online model. This involved implementing several new systems to support online instruction, take attendance online, monitor student engagement and ensure students were kept safe while they were working and learning online.
Videoconferencing became an integral part of both daily classroom instruction and periodic meetings held by various district groups and teams.
SWCSD functions in a Google environment as a district, and Google's Meet tool combined with Google Classroom provided excellent support for our users during this major transition. We already had been using Google Classroom as one of our learning-management-system options, but some staff and students who had never been part of an online videoconference or webinar found it essential to use these new tools and newly acquired skills on a daily basis to keep students learning and the district moving forward.
As we have transitioned back to classroom learning, some of the new tools and skills we had used and had learned last school year will continue to be utilized, especially the ones that proved to make many routine processes, meetings, etc., more efficient and effective during our year of surviving "in the deep end."
We started the school year using technology as a substitute for in-person learning but finished the year using technology to accelerate and, in some cases, transform instruction.
We have progressed from the dog paddle to the butterfly stroke.
Bryan Mulvany is the South-Western City School District’s executive director of management and information systems.
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