Distance Learning in Pre-K

Wow. This year has changed so much. I’ve been going non-stop lately creating lessons and experimenting with new technology. Here is a roundup of the things I have been using and making.

Google Voice

I make calls to every family every week. To maintain some privacy and a separation between my personal life and my work life, I have been using Google Voice to make these contacts. It was easy to set up and is easy to use on my laptop, phone, and tablet. It’s a good thing I have it, because the mic on my phone stopped working so I am not able to use it to actually make calls.

Loom

I started using Loom to record all of my videos for teaching. It has been so simple to use! Aside from filming lessons and activities for students, I have also created tutorials and trainings for parents and teachers. You can find my videos about using SeeSaw, Wakelet, Class Dojo, our district’s online subscription database, and an explanation for parents about what pre-k writing is all about here: Loom Trainings and Tutorials

Wakelet

I learned about Wakelet in one of my courses for my degree (you can see that post here), and it has been really helpful in organizing my information and resources for distance learning. Here are some of the Wakes I have made

• • General Resources
  • Educational Sites
  • Where to Find Books
  • Insect Theme
  • Spring Theme Week 1
  • Spring Theme Week 2

Google Slides

As much as I thought Wakelet was the perfect solution to the problem of organizing information for parents, the feedback they gave me said the opposite was true. Parents have found Wakelet to be confusing and/or buggy. So I decided to try something new and put the same content into a Google Slides format. I got much more positive feedback from parents that the content was easier to navigate. You can have a look at the first Google Slides lesson I made here. The more I created with slides the more I experimented. Adding audio narration and plastering my bitmoji all over everything are just a couple of the ways I’ve enhanced my presentations. Once I had made a few slides lessons I realized I needed a way to organize them to make it as easy as possible for parents to access, Which brings us to our next tool…

Smore

I was introduced to Smore through an assignment to create a virtual book display (you can see that post here). I began using Smore as a hub for all the lessons for a theme unit, before branching out to creating actual newsletters. Here are some of the Smores I have made

• • Spring Theme
  • Earth and Space Theme
  • Ocean Theme
  • The Park Lake Pre-K Press Issue 1
  • The Park Lake Pre-K Press Issue 2

Google Forms

How did I get feedback about Wakelet not working? Google Forms (which are so easy to embed into Smore).

• • Distance Learning Feedback
  • Format For Content Delivery
  • Scheduling a chat

Donors Choose

Because I work in a Head Start partnership my students all come from low income families and for the most part do not have school supplies at home. I’m talking the basics, paper, crayons, markers, etc. So I created a project on Donors Choose to get them the materials they need to be successful learning from home.

Limitations

There are so many other programs and applications I would like to incorporate. PearDeck, FlipGrid, Kahoot, Popplet, the list goes on and on. Why haven’t I used them? I have been trying first and foremost to listen to my students’ families and focus on what is really going to be beneficial to them. The feedback I was getting was that they are being asked to use too many different programs for their kids’ school and they are overwhelmed. It is difficult for them to navigate to one place to find out what the assignment is, then go to another place to complete the activity, then post that work somewhere else, and so on. The families I serve are low income and fall into two basic categories: those who have lost jobs because of COVID and are scrambling to make ends meet, and those who are essential workers being run ragged for very little pay. I have to consider the position they are in, their access (or lack thereof) to technology, the amount of time they have to work with their kids, and what kind of background experience they have with these different technologies. It has been frustrating and disheartening at times when I have ideas for cool ways to use technology or when parents do not use the things I have worked hard to create. I just have to keep reminding myself that if even one family uses what I am creating and sharing, if I have reached a single child, I have made a difference and it is worth the work.

Google Classroom

Over the summer I had intended to take two courses (5345 and 5600), but I ended up not being able to take 5600. In order to receive my summer financial aid I had to find another course to take and I selected INFO 5845: Creating Online Content for Youth Services. I learned a lot and got to explore some new-to-me technology. The main project of the course was developing an online course of my own. I used Google Classroom to create my course. You can view and join the course at classroom.google.com with the code yr63k6. I’m pretty proud of what I ended up creating.

Creating User Surveys with Google Forms

When I was given the assignment to create a survey for library patrons using Google Forms I will a little bit unsure. I’ve filled out forms created in Google, but I had never tried creating a form. It turns out that creating forms is incredibly easy! The only part that was difficult was deciding on what topic to create the survey over and what questions to include.

Custom Search Engine

Our assignment this week in my 5720 class was to create a custom google search engine using 3-10 websites. We had to pick a topic relating to the core curriculum of our school (math, science, reading, social studies, or English). I, of course, went with science because it is my favorite subject to teach. My search engine focuses on our solar system and you can check it out here.

Custom search engines are such a great tool for teachers. It allows teachers to select quality, relevant resources for students to use in their research, while also allowing them to practice using search engines to find information. It makes the results less overwhelming for students and ensures that they are not finding false information and developing misconceptions. A custom search engine would also be perfect for a webquest.

Learner Centered Strategies

This week I made a google slides presentation and an accompanying handout in google docs. This is the first time that I have used those applications, so it was a learning process. It was not that difficult to figure out really, they’re pretty intuitive if you’ve used Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. I missed some of the features of the Microsoft products, but I loved the way it was synced anywhere I wanted to work on it and when I edited it it updated everywhere the link was shared.

Here’s the presentation and the handout.