PDcast SVUSD

In the final episode for the stranger-than-strange 2019-20 school year, Team ToSA shares how to close out your Seesaw classes and your Google Classrooms to prepare for next year, and gives some advice for the summer.

Elizabeth and Jen talk with three teachers from Virtual Academy: Lisa Meyers, Angela Dean, and Carla Nellis. These three share their best strategies for building instructor presence and community in online classes, how to provide structure with flexibility for students, how to keep students engaged, and how to manage their own workflows.

The usual suspects talk about the pros and cons of virtual conference sessions, how to find online PD that meets your needs, what podcasts you should listen to, and other topics around professional learning at a distance.

Lisa Turlo and Robert Sherlock join us to discuss the district's grading policy for secondary students this term. We also talk about some strategies teachers can use to help engage and motivate students during the COVID 19 shutdown.

Listen as five elementary teachers describe their distance learning successes, challenges, and hints for other teachers. Teachers Peggy Aungst, Raniah Crail, Erin Hansen, Kelley Miller, and Catherine Scanlon join Jen and Kathleen on our elementary teachers panel.

We talk with four secondary teachers about their experiences so far with distance learning. Michelle Mock (MVHS), Ryan Mock (THHS), Michelle Stafford (La Paz), and Emily Tombleson (THHS) share what has gone well so far, how they have organized online learning for their students, and how they have provided both the structure and the flexibility that students (and teachers) need during this time.

We talk with Once and Future ToSA Amanda Taylor to get her perspective on distance learning both as an educational consultant and teacher, and also as a parent. Our wide-ranging discussion covers topics such as technology inequity among schools, organizational practices for teachers and students in distance learning, how she is helping her own children with the work they are getting, and many other great insights.

... that is the question. We review some of the recently updated features of Meet and Zoom, share some strategies for using either one of them well with students and with adults, and discuss the burning question: Is it rude to turn off your camera in a video meeting?

We revisit previous episodes that may be helpful for teachers in this time of distance learning. Listen for highlights about Discovery Education, BrainPop, making videos with Explain Everything, and creating and finding Hyperdocs.

Glenn Giokaris is the principal of Saddleback's Virtual Academy. In this episode, we ask him about what advice he has for teachers who have had distance learning thrust upon them and how they can help their students succeed remotely.