Though learning from home is certainly not our first choice, in Year 2 at Phorms Berlin Süd, we are doing our best to explore how technology can help us learn and keep us close while we’re apart.
To keep up with our usual activities, we have been using a platform called Seesaw, in which every student has their own profile with access to all our assignments. Each day, new activities are assigned for each subject, with some instruction followed by an activity. Our students have become amazingly adept at working with Seesaw’s tools, filling out worksheets, recording their thoughts with the voice recorder, even creating digital drawings and videos to share what they are learning with teachers!
We also have a private blog, only accessible to students, as a place to share special projects that students have created at home. In just one week of home learning, we’ve seen homemade movies, magic tricks, and comedy sketches. Students have also shared bits and pieces of home with one another, introducing us to their chickens, bunnies, football playing pups, and more.
In addition to our work on Seesaw, 2S has been able to stay in contact and support our learning with daily Zoom sessions. These have given us another chance to explore what tools technology has to enhance our learning. We have played games that got us running all over our houses to find objects starting with a certain letter, as well as shared a whiteboard on which students can write directly to show us how they are solving a given math problem. We’re even planning a virtual field trip together, using 3D street view technology to let us explore somewhere new as if we are really there!
Of course, we cannot wait for the chance to be back together again in the classroom, and really collaborate side by side in our learning. But for now, we are so proud of the hard work and incredible creativity we have seen from our students as they quickly adapted to a virtual learning environment.
