 Yes! Is it ideal for everyone? No. I have successfully completed two online graduate degrees and have withdrawn from a third. My experiences have ranged from extremely positive to nervous breakdown inducing (I'll let you deduce which caused that)! While my personal pursuits of online education do not make me an expert by any means, I did lead my school's effort to transition our K-5 learning environment to virtual learning in the middle of the pandemic. I threw my heart into helping the students, parents, teachers , and admins navigate brand new territory and I was quite proud of how well we did. Could we have done it better? I honestly don't think so. We did the best we could with what we had to work with. But can we do it better this fall? Absolutely.
The upcoming school year will again bring uncertainty as it tests us all. The fear from the spring is still palpable, but with it comes the fear that we will do our students a disservice if we don't get it right. Online learning can be successful if we stop using the same methods we use in the classroom and start teaching for the environment. "There are many things we should be doing right now that are certain to improve the state of education for our nation's nearly 57 million pre-K through 12th grade students during this time of crisis. What’s more, these moves can also transform the future of education for all of our children and their families." Read: Coronavirus: Remote learning turns kids into zombies because we're doing it all wrong by Lindsay Portnoy (USA Today) Online learning can be successful, but teachers and families need support and training to get it right. We can't just substitute in-school experiences with screencasts, youtube videos, and google apps. Real learning is possible if we adjust our expectations to go beyond that with which we are comfortable. We can cultivate learning on a deeper level and increase student to teacher and student to student communication if we utilize existing technologies and adapt to new norms. Will it be easy? No. But is it possible? Yes.
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