<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"></figure>

JBB’s Final Thoughts Episode 37: The Endless Assault of “New Normals”

Pondering the challenges of finishing the school year in “work from home” mode and how the world might change “after this is done.”

MP3 Version:

<figure class="wp-block-audio"></figure>

Enjoy and please subscribe to my YouTube channel or subscribe to all of my blog posts (scroll to the bottom of this page, click the red FOLLOW button in the “Follow blog via email” box).

Please Subscribe:

• YouTube Channel
• Twitter Account
• Apple Podcasts/iTunes
• Via Soundcloud
• RSS Reader
• Past JBB’s Final Thoughts Podcast Episodes

Resources/Credits:

• music: Social Blindness – 22K by Smart Sound Music
• All images and screen grabs by Joe Bustillos ©2020 except where noted
• Nevada schools will stay shut the rest of school year (image by Rachel Aston), Las Vegas Review-Journal, 04-22-2020 CCSD Chromebook Deployment (images), CBS 8 News Las Vegas, 04-22-2020. EduBlogs screens (images), retrieved  01-22-2020
• Empty Las Vegas by Josh Metz, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2932568266766674&set=pcb.2932568556766645&type=3&theater, retrieved 2020-04-08

Episode Notes/Script/Post:

Joe Bustillos here.

Toward the end of last week I found out that the rest of the school year is going to continue in the current “work from home”/“emergency learning” mode. Side Note: many districts are calling this current mode “remote learning,” but those of us who have conducted actual online or remote learning reject the use of those words to describe what we’re doing because it wasn’t begun with any planning or guidance or technology support that actual remote learning requires. And any successes in this endeavor is entirely because teachers are determined to stay connected with their students and quite frankly we are used to being told to do the impossible and make it happen without the means to be successful.

Last week was also the week when Chromebooks were being distributed to families attending my school who do not have technology at home. Since week two, home room teachers have been calling homes to connect with their students and to verify contact information. The word was that a large portion of our students and families didn’t have any technology at home including any kind of smartphone. So the decision and implementation of distributing technology is a good thing. I just wish that this could have happened before we began the fifth week of our current situation (sixth week if you count the week of Spring Break that we still got). So, that leaves four more weeks until the beginning of the Summer Break. I’m curious how much can be done in that time, given the lack of direct contact.

I’ve been working like crazing creating instructional videos and trying to figure out how I might get students to access the curriculum. One of the other specials teachers, the music teacher, has been championing using the Seesaw platform because it’s not dependent on student email addresses and can be accessed with a smartphone. Before this began I had created individual blogs for the 4th and 5th graders to teach Internet communications and digital citizenship, but that got a little derailed. So I’m thinking that I will jump on the simpler Seesaw bandwagon for the primary grades (K through 3) and use Google Classroom with the intermediate grades (4 and 5) with the option for any 4th or 5th grade students to use the blog accounts I’ve already created if they want to. Now to figure out how to get the personal login information to each student without creating a security leak. Oh yeah, during the second week of this situation district IT decided to change how student passwords could be updated and/or recovered and I was locked out of that process altogether, making it impossible for me to assist my teachers in getting student emails up and running (another reason I am going with Seesaw with the primary grades…). Then toward the end of last week, I was able to update a student password, so I’ll be busy working on those classes that didn’t get setup after I was locked out.

It’s not e