#onlineteaching

Modal verbs are auxiliary verbs that express notions like possibility, permission, obligation, etc.

Class: Level 1 (kids aged 6, 7, and 8)

Platform: Zoom

Issue 1: unreliable internet connection

It’s monsoon season. The rains have been torrential these few Sundays, and consequently, the internet connection during classes have been less than ideal. All the lesson prep in the world is for nought if we’re not able to even be in class (this has happened; scripture memorisation was a bust that week). We need a backup plan for when teachers lose connection. Ditto for students. They need access to a lesson summary of some sort, some way to catch up.

Fixes:

For teachers: share digital materials we plan to use that week with co-teachers on Google Drive so they can sub if needed -> Flaw 1: just co-teacher access as backup may not be enough. Sub may not know how the on-duty teacher plans to use the materials for class (It's like being expected to give a good presentation with slides you've just had sprung on you. That ain’t gonna fly, man). Flaw 2: this fix is useless if the on-duty teacher doesn't use slides or videos in their lessons.

For students: post a lesson summary on Google Drive or the parent/teacher WhatsApp group chat to catch them up.

For class (video lag during screen share): share the video link instead of screen sharing, allot time to watch, then reconvene class? [to be followed up in a future post] -> Flaw: might not work with really young kids.

Issue 2: super short attention span of young kids

Like, you can lose them in the time it takes to stop one screen share and start another. Any sort of disruption to the lesson flow seems to drastically affect the kids' ability to retain what’s being taught. I’ve had a session where all they remembered that day was the WiFi failure that interrupted class 😢

Fix: become more proficient at switching between screens so delay times are minimised, OR eliminate the need to switch between screens at all. I’ve recently switched to using only the whiteboard during class. I narrate and draw out the Bible story of the week instead of using videos and slides. The kids seem to enjoy my drawing, but whether this method is actually effective at communicating lesson points, I’ll have to observe a few more lessons to see. [to be followed up in a future post]

Issue 3: messy communication system and information archive

I have four separate WhatsApp groups for Sunday School, and keeping track of all the scattered announcements and discussions can be tedious and time-consuming. Student access to class materials could also benefit from streamlining. We're using a mix of WhatsApp and Google Drive to assign/check "homework" and post up lesson summaries and announcements right now. Not the worse way of doing things, but definitely not the most efficient.

The Government of India on Monday banned 59 applications, most of them popular Chinese applications such as TikTok, Shareit ,Mi Video Call,Club Factory and Cam Scanner, citing threat to national security and sovereignty.

Among the list is Cam Scanner, a widely used app for scanning documents. Apart from letting users scan documents or photos using their smartphone camera, the app also lets users archive their digital copies in a safe location.It seems that the app is currently functional so we advise you to offload your important documents before the service is completely blocked.So what alternatives do you have? Well, there are plenty to choose from with some offering similar results as Cam Scanner itself.

ADOBE SCAN- THE FREE DOCUMENT scanning app from Adobe, with integrated OCR technology to instantly recognize printed text and handwriting. Use this mobile document scanner to turn anything — receipts, notes, documents, photos, business cards, whiteboards — into an Adobe PDF with content you can reuse from each PDF and photo scan.

Microsoft Office Lens- Microsoft’s Office Lens app is a very powerful tool. Apart from scanning different sorts of documents, it even lets you scan handwritten notes, whiteboards and diagrams, and more. The app also lets you convert images to PDF, Word, and PowerPoint files, and save to OneNote, OneDrive, or your local device. There is also support for OCR and auto-edge scanning.

Evernote- Evernote is a great app to organise your notes, memos and documents. The app comes with a built-in scanner as well so you can save your documents in a jiffy. The app also lets you save photos and articles from the web. Further, you can easily share your documents and the app also comes with OCR to recognise handwritten documents or notes.

Photoscan- This is primarily a photo scanning app by Google, so don’t expect high-end tools for scanning documents. However, when it comes to photos, it has the ability to scan photos while maintaining the details. Now since it is made by Google, it comes with powerful algorithms to auto-detects edges, takes high-quality pictures, and remove glare and blemishes, automatically.

absolutely no one: