Tech Talk at SMES

WHAT'S NEW?

by CHRIS NAMA

DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY & WADE HANSE SMES STEAM COORDINATOR

For the past several decades, the role of technology in schools has steadily increased. Starting in March 2020, the world-wide pandemic elevated schools’ collective focus on technology, not only to enhance education but also to deliver content in new and creative ways. As such, a priority in the months leading up to the 2020-2021 school year was ensuring that we were well prepared for any potential and necessary shifts in delivering educational content to students. Our goal was

for teachers, students and families to be in a better position to work and communicate with each other, no matter the circumstances. On a school-wide level, St. Martin’s invested in the education level of Zoom as the video communication platform. This has given us more control over the safety of the platform and our ability to troubleshoot issues for faculty and students. We also invested in new Dell laptops for all teachers, increasing their professional flexibility and their ability to deliver content to students in person and those learning from home. Additionally, if the need arises to pivot to virtual instruction, the mobility of the laptop will ease the transition by allowing teachers to work on the same device to deliver content from home. As a part of the virtual learning conversation over the summer, the school prioritized the learning needs of our students during the decision-making process. Through that lens, platforms were selected to assist teachers in delivering age-appropriate instruction in a remote environment. For students from Early Childhood through 3rd-grade, we selected SeeSaw as the learning management platform because it provides our youngest learners the ability to engage with their teachers in a meaningful and age-appropriate way. To date, our youngest virtual learners are using SeeSaw to receive their daily instruction, and our EC through 3rd-grade, in-person learners are actively working on building their proficiencies around this platform as well. For our learners from 4th-grade and beyond, Google Classroom is the platform of choice based on its familiarity and function. Since shifting to a one-device-per-student system several years ago, St. Martin’s has increasingly relied on Google Classroom. Additionally, Google Classroom is fully integrated with the Google suite of apps and allows students in grades 4th and up to use their Chromebooks to complete and turn in assignments. Currently, this platform is being used extensively for both our in-person and virtual learning environments. Finally, after our community's experience with virtual learning in the spring of 2020, it became abundantly clear that our families and students desired a single-portal for accessing applications and websites used by teachers. Consequently, the school made the decision to add Clever for our entire school family. Clever is an online portal that acts as a single doorway, where students are able to gain access to all virtual tools. Depending on the student’s grade level, Clever includes teachers’ Zoom links, online textbooks, library resources, educational websites and more. Also, Clever eliminates the need for students and parents to keep track of multiple passwords for the resources they need. St. Martin’s will continue to collect feedback from students and families to better evaluate options and ensure that our strategy is bestsuited for the St. Martin’s community.