Living in the time of COVID-19 has tremendously shifted our lives and routines. In a period where schools and businesses are restricted from opening because of existing quarantine and social distancing protocols, the idea of operating remotely online sounds more feasible than ever.
Schools around the world are getting creative while adapting to the work-from-home setup. Different school administrations are constantly developing innovative solutions that allow students to continue with their learning. Fortunately enough, the majority of these solutions are possible through technology.
The transition into a fully online learning environment can be challenging, but here are five online resources that can make teaching from home become better and easier:
Canva
Working remotely means that everything must be done virtually. This can also mean that visual learning is a major key when it comes to making lessons more effective and engaging. Creating visually appealing learning materials for students can be quite difficult and tedious for some, especially when you lack inspiration and the proper design skills.
Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create presentations, social media graphics, posters, lesson plans, and other visual content. It provides users with millions of images, fonts, templates, and illustrations that are available for both web and mobile.
For educators, you can explore and play around with thousands of customizable templates to suit your lecture topics. You can also find design and productivity-related resources like these work from home tips from Canva as you prepare your presentations and set up your virtual classroom.
Zoom
Nothing beats a good face-to-face conversation especially when it comes to your meetings or lectures. Bringing the same interactive element to a virtual classroom is vital in ensuring students are present and engaged.
A basic Zoom plan gives you a 40-minute time limit and lets you accommodate three or more participants. Once you create an account, you can schedule your online lessons and share your meeting link to participants via email to automatically mark the event into their Google Calendars. Once your session starts, you can share your screen and use the annotation function to present. Make room for more functionality with Zoom through these tips here.
Slack
Maintaining connections with your team or students can be tricky during times when you’re working apart. Emailing and instant messaging apps are still considered as go-to options, with emails being considered as the professional means in an academic and business setup.
Slack helps you create an active working environment by turning those “quick desk chats” at work virtually. You may create task or topic-specific channels to make check-ins and updates on your tasks more convenient for your team. It also enables you to do voice and video calls in-app and connects your tools such as Google Calendar, Drive, and Zoom for easy access.
Trello
Cultivating an organized and collaborative virtual environment for you and your students is just as important as when it was still being done in your physical classroom. As easy as it is to get side-tracked with numerous tasks at hand, creating an effective list will allow you and your students to continue to engage productively and stay connected.
Trello is an online visual collaboration platform that can be used to organize, communicate, and collaborate on projects and assignments. You and your students will be able to take control of assigned projects and create an outline of the steps needed to complete them. It has an easy-to-use drag and drop feature from one list to another, providing you with more visibility on what needs to be done. Organize your tasks and projects easily and efficiently with Trello through these tips here.
Google Docs
Distance learning may pose a difficulty in handing out modules and additional learning materials for your students. Manage them all in one place and encourage collaborative work on these documents when you set it up in Google Docs.
By signing up for Gmail, it gives you access to multiple Google apps, such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, that you can utilize for learning and teaching. For some institutions, you may find yourselves working on G Suite through your work email that enables you to connect to the same apps with more functionality. Worried on how to accommodate students who are struggling with low bandwidth or no internet access? Reach them through these tips for setting up Google Docs for offline learning.
Adapting to a new working environment at home can be daunting when onsite activities have been the norm for many of us. It can be easy to give in to procrastination and leisure, but establishing a work-life balance is always a prerequisite to productivity. Don’t fret when it all doesn’t fall in place at once. The key to truly embracing this change is by using these tools to your favor and by working around the challenges with creative solutions.
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