Showing posts with label snow days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow days. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

First SnoGo Days, and Eminence's EdHub

Welcome back from the holidays!  We had our first significant snow last week, so Thursday and Friday (January 5 and 6) became our first official and inaugural SnoGo days!

For the uninitiated, "SnoGo Days" are non-traditional instructional days, where students work at home on material prepared in advance by teachers.  It's the enactment of our philosophy that learning never stops and continues beyond the boundaries of a brick and mortar building. The teachers also remain in contact with students via email, phone, messages via Schoology, and more.  Speaking of Schoology, our LMS was a crucial tool to organize work and accept submissions during SnoGo . . . and students definitely used it.  Here's a way to compare just how much: during the week before winter break, our most active Schoology usage day inside our buildings was December 13 with 45,591 Schoology page views.  On January 5 and 6, we had 79,046 and 75,929 views, respectively.  I should point out that teachers certainly could give students a menu of optional offline work, and just as they would for an excused absence, students have a small window to make up work upon their return.  We don't want lack of Internet access at home to limit their SnoGo learning!

 Our SnoGo caught the attention of two local newstations.  WHAS 11 discussed the non-traditional nature of the learning.   WAVE 3 talked to the Leonberger family, and got this great quote from eighth grader Jake: "I think it's really cool they gave us these Chromebooks and made SnoGo a thing. It makes it so kids can pace themselves at home."  (Add a path of learning and factor in the choice of when to do the work, and you have our 3PT program.)  Both stories include video with some helpful visuals of Schoology at work.

And learning didn't stop with students.  Lora Shields (our Shelby Staff Developer) and I created modules in -- what else? -- Schoology, in order for classified staff to have professional development online during SnoGo.

Several teachers, principals and students tweeted throughout our SnoGo, but this is probably my favorite:

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On Day Two of SnoGo, I took an already scheduled trip over to a nearby neighboring school: Eminence.  I've been wanting to see their library expansion, named the EdHub, since it opened at the beginning of the school year.  Along with SCHS's librarian Julie Webb, we got the grand tour.   Here are some of my social media posts:




I particularly like the picture in the last tweet of the Scantron sheet and pencil, an archaic artifact of the past, enshrined in a museum case for future students to puzzle its ancient purpose and use.

We left with some great inspiration on how to better utilize our own libraries and increase our makerspace opportunities.  Thanks to the EdHub Director and secondary librarian James Allen for being a gracious host!


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Thursday, February 19, 2015

Snowbound but still learning

Brrrr.  Day #4 of our Kentuckiana snowmaggedon.  In Shelby County, we announced today's closing with some flair:



Here's a fun fact: Kentucky is "the first state to tackle the problem on a statewide basis," and several districts are piloting snowbound learning days.  When a snow day occurs, students know to log in and get their assignments.  (For those with tech equity issues, a "hard copy" packet is provided before the expected snow day or provided to the student when they return.)  The big question, of course, is: will they do it?  As always, students are willing to meet and exceed expectations.   I actually wonder if students prefer the personalized, individual, comfortable learning they can achieve at home rather than the desks in a row, bell-driven experience that occurs for most of our schools. (I think I can guess the answer.) How can we replicate that experience inside our schools?  (For further reading, Kentucky's pilot program is detailed in this national news story, and another article discusses how Lawrence County uses Google Classroom to make "no school" into "snow school.")

Here in Shelby County, several of our teachers and principals are using Twitter to communicate assignments, expectations and/or use of technology to continue learning at home.  Here is a sampling:




Whenever we return to the brick-and-mortar buildings (tomorrow? Monday?  April 24th???), I hope that we continue to find innovative ways to blur the boundaries of where and when learning can occur.  Until then, stay warm inside your igloos and be careful on the roads!
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