(This is the second post in a multipart series. You can see Part One .)
Here is the new question-of-the-week:
What has your online learning experience been as a student? What did you like about it? What didn鈥檛 you like about it? How does it compare with your experience as a student in a physical classroom? In the future, if you could choose, would you want to do more online learning? If so, why? If not, why not?
In , five students from the high school where I teach in Sacramento, Calif., shared their reflections.
Today, the first three contributions come from students in Austin Green鈥檚 1st grade class in Utah.
All other student commentators today work with Robert G Taylor, Ed.S., and Jon Harding at the Kansas State School for the Blind.
鈥淚 miss my teacher!鈥�
Tristan Fitzgerald is a 1st grade student at Fremont Elementary School, age 6:
I鈥檓 doing good at online learning. I miss my friends. I spend lots of time at home. My sister distracts me!!! I miss my teacher! I鈥檓 doing the same things. It is harder because of my sister. I want to learn in the classroom because I would miss my teacher.
鈥淪chool is over fast鈥�
Sydni Buckner is a 1st grade student at Fremont Elementary School, age 7:
What I like about remote learning. First, school is over fast. Next, there鈥檚 no waiting on students and it鈥檚 quiet. Last, I like to use the computer. I like remote learning.
Carsen Gordon is a 1st grade student at Fremont Elementary School, age 7:
I have liked doing math with remote learning. I have also liked that it is shorter time than at school. My teacher is doing Zoom meetings to teach us. He has made it easy to understand the work I need to do. I would like to do more online learning.
鈥淟earn at my own pace鈥�
Jay Walker is a junior at Smithville High School in Smithville, Mo.:
At first, it was incredibly difficult transitioning from traditional high school to online learning, but gradually as the months go by I am slowly starting to get used to it. Though I feel like I鈥檓 not getting a good amount of social interaction from my peers, I find online learning to be much more beneficial for me as a student. Not being in the pressurized environment of a classroom gives me the opportunity to learn at my own pace, whether that be faster or slower than the original classroom, and if clarification is needed, I can simply rewind the lecture videos my teachers are putting out, or send an email to my teacher quickly and efficiently.
Being visually impaired in a high school Is challenging, next to navigating the hallways and putting a lot of trust into my technology for it to work properly that day, I feel as though my anxiety has dropped tremendously while being home, because if something were to go wrong with my tech, I can simply pause what I鈥檓 doing and fix it, and not have to worry about missing something or slowing the others down.
I would love to have online learning integrated into the natural high school environment, seeing as I am getting so much more done in such a shorter time, and I feel like I鈥檓 actually learning the material and not just grazing over it like I would in a standard classroom.
鈥淚 can more easily express what accommodations I need鈥�
Rich Yamamoto is a junior at the Kansas State School for the Blind in Kansas City:
As a sophomore, I did a couple of online classes through my public school in Andover, while attending the Kansas State School for the Blind (KSSB). Those experiences compared to this year were less than pleasant, simply because at the time, I didn鈥檛 know what I was doing, and I tended to overwork myself silly. This year, we鈥檙e doing all of our classes via Zoom, and that鈥檚 greatly impacted my views on online learning. I鈥檓 always in constant verbal communication with my teachers, I can more easily express what accommodations I need, and I can get to know my teacher a lot better than if we were just communicating over a comment thread in Google Classroom or email. It鈥檚 much more relaxed now, and I must say, it鈥檚 rather enjoyable.
I don鈥檛 know if I would want to have more online learning in the future because if I鈥檓 being truly honest, I like the look and feel of a regular classroom sometimes. However, that doesn鈥檛 mean that I would be opposed to doing assignments online; I just want the instruction to be in a classroom, because it鈥檚 nice to know that you鈥檙e truly not the only one who may be lost. Unfortunately, because of the time we are living in right now, online learning is becoming more of a necessity if we want to keep on learning the skills that we learn in the classroom, and something tells me that due to updates in technology, online learning is going to be a lot more prevalent even after this pandemic is over.
Oral commentaries from a podcast
Patrick Wilson Jr., Mara Hug, and Rich Yamamoto (the same student who wrote the preceding contribution) are hosts of at the Kansas State School for the Blind.
Rich (Junior) is an all-around student, participating in sports; forensics; and is popular with others students and adults for his willingness to help others.
Patrick (Freshman) loves being creative and trying anything new in technology. He loves talking about technology and amazes us on the topics he is familiar with.
Mara (Freshman) loves to read and spend time with her friends. She has used a variety of technologies and loves to apply them with everyday challenges.
Here is their podcast titled :
Thanks to Tristan, Sydni, Carsen, Jay, Rich, Patrick, and Mara for their contributions!
Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it鈥檚 selected or if you鈥檇 prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
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