My first document by Katarzyna Hilbrycht

ONLINE TEACHING 2.0: WE ALSO LEARN AT HOME 2020-1-PT01-KA226-SCH-094785 29.03.2021 - 28.03.2023

1st TPM

19-23.09.2021 TOMAR, PORTUGAL

DISTANCE LEARNING: WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE? WHAT TO DO NEXT?

Information & data collected at Zespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących

nr 2 w Gdańsku (Poland)

The pandemic of COVID-19 forced us to switch our real-life classroom teaching into the virtual one. At the beginning, we were inexperienced lacking the proper tools and receiving very little support from the authorities. However, as they say: “necessity is the mother of invention”, we quickly adjusted our private equipment and found the proper apps to let the transition to online teaching go smoothly.

What is more, the gradual introduction of digital tools that happened in our school earlier through various projects (mostly Erasmus+) enabled us a quick and successful implementation of online education. Until the end of April 2020 we managed to prepare digital classrooms on MS Teams (this platform was introduced to all the schools in the region by Gdańsk authorities). There were several workshops and webinars organized for the school staff on how to run virtual classes using digital skills and various apps.

We managed to achieve the following:

- introduce digital tools in the classroom (workshops for students and teachers);

- organize a debate on the future of education (students-parentsteachers)

“What can we gain from online education?”;

- Innovation in Online Education

– a student’s perspective : an online workshop for teachers prepared by a student;

- create a manual on the most useful learning apps that can be used by the teachers of every subject (Genially presentation).

https://app.genial.ly/editor/5ea9

9fcf5eaff10d7d40a65a

Although a lot has been done, there are still challenges to overcome. Some students got lost in the virtual world; some do not have a reliable Internet access and the effectiveness of online learning has been questioned by many. Therefore, we decided to carry out a survey to see what our staff thinks about their online teaching experience. We asked them ten questions and the results are as follows:

2. Have you received sufficient support from the school to conduct your online classes effectively?

77,8%-Yes

22,2%-No

3. Did you share experience, good practices and ideas related to online lessons with other teachers?

83,3%-Yes

16,7%-No

4. Which teaching tools did you most often use when working remotely?

5. Provide the names of the applications and programmes which you most often used during your online lessons. Give up to 3 examples. Whiteboard, Forms, Wordwall, pisu pisu, matzoo, Testportal, Jamboard, YouTube, Messenger, Skype, Discord, Mentimeter, Paint 3D, eduzabawy, Khanacademy, Canva, Mentimeter, Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet, Learning Apps, GimKit

1.How would you rate your overall online teaching experience?

50%-very good; 44,4%-good;

5,6%-bad

PPT Presentations – 83,3% Videos – 77,8% No extra tools / apps – 38,9% Digital books – 5,6% Online apps – 5,6% Working together on a shared document – 5,6%

6. What do you think are the advantages of distance learning?

72,2% - professional development (new skills; new tools and methods of teaching),

72,2% - attractive and engaging lessons (a number websites with useful resources),

66,7% - flexibility / time saving,

16,7% - better relationships with students,

11,1% - I can't see any benefits, 5,6% - fast communication.

Some of the children who normally sat quietly at school became active and dared in front of the screen; Ease of presenting additional information online; I made it; I was surprised how well the children handle the Internet tools I learned new tools for working with children; I was surprised that I can comprehend so much; Freedom to experiment; Students now appreciate full-time teaching.

55,6% - inability to assess the actual knowledge of the student, 33,3% - working from home using your own equipment and internet connection, 11,1% - inability to implement all the assumed curriculum and content of the lesson, 5,6% - health problems (backache).

7. What turned out to be a nice surprise about distance learning? What do you still like about it? Saving time; Endless possibilities; Commitment and involvement of some students;

8. Which of the following problems connected with online teaching are the most difficult for you?

77,8% - students' emotional problems: stress related to distance learning, fatigue and lack of motivation,

9. How do you think the school should support teachers during distance learning? Provide equipment and initial or refresher training and psychological support;

The school supports, the government should buy equipment for the teacher; Hardware support. Provide equipment & training. Introduce new teachers into the process and procedures in distant learning.

10. What would do you think should be improved in distance learning?

77,8% - maintaining students' motivation and attention, 66,7% - teachers' access to technology (computers, Internet connection, etc.),

Training in interesting applications, websites and ways to diversify distance learning

Teachers should work from the school, on school equipment, the school should ensure a good quality internet connection and the constant presence of an IT worker in order to update / fix technical problems.

33,3% - relationships with students, 33,3% - assessment of students' progress, 27,8% - support from the school, 27,8% - teachers' level of digital competences.

The following data was collected At Zespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących nr 2 w Gdańsku by Erasmsus+ Team led by Katarzyna Hilbryct-Przybysz