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Encouragement for New Online Instructors

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Encouragement for New Online Instructors

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Teachers love their students deeply and want nothing more than for them to have a positive experience regardless of circumstance. So when thousands of teachers heard that they had a mere 24 hours to move instruction online, they naturally started working harder to figure out logistics. But many of us are perfectionists, and this is one case where we shouldn't be. As the country scrambles around for toilet paper, chicken breasts, and hand sanitizer, this is one area we should let go of a bit and perhaps strive for imperfect online learning. Why?

1. One day, or week, isn't enough time to plan an online course

So don't try to. Teachers who virtually teach as a career spend months planning, examining resources, and recording videos. This is not the same thing, nor should it be, as we have very little time to prepare and we will be planning and teaching almost simultaneously as we all figure out what it will look like. Many districts are limiting online learning to review and extension work, rather than demanding new content be taught as thoroughly and efficiently as it is in a classroom. Don't feel the need to overachieve beyond that requirement, as you, your family, and your students have other concerns to attend to.

2. Acknowledge the limitations of learning from home

Before you plan a 50-minute lecture on science theory, consider what it will be like for students to receive and learn in their environments at home. If a student has WIFI and if it's fast enough, they may listen. If their parents aren't panicking in the background about where to get food and childcare, they may listen. If they aren't watching their three younger siblings, they may listen. If their parents are around and forcing them to do school work, they may listen. If they, or a family member, aren't sick themselves, they may listen. If their anxiety is not through the roof, they may listen. This is a lot of if's. Don't make that 50-minute video if you don't have to. Remember ... imperfect online learning.

3. Consider assigning the simplest task: reading

When, in the history of being a student, have your kids had unlimited time to read? Consider minimizing your worksheets, packets, videos, and online lectures, and replace whatever you can with reading. Let them read for fun, for once, without the looming tests and curriculum schedule. Give them fascinating articles to read and host an online discussion board or chat time. Students without WIFI can still access books.

4. Ease up on rules

Limit tests that may time out with slow WIFI, extremely strict deadlines that may not make room for technology problems, and similar rules. Instead, encourage communication with you, and in some cases other classmates. This isn't the time to be more by-the-book or to increase emphasis on grades. In a popular article circulating amongst teachers in the past week, Dr. Rebecca Barrett-Fox suggests everything be open book, open note, and re-doable for a bit. Teachers accounting for the challenge of adjusting to a potential pandemic shows compassion

5. It's time for the mini-lesson to shine (again)

If you are still required to teach new content, communicate new concepts in small sections, videos, posts, or increments to allow students to learn in short spurts of time. That way, they can do ten minutes of work before helping their little sister. A five-minute video seems much more approachable than one that would have replaced a full class period. Also, consider allowing students to make their own videos and to post them, allowing for 30 mini lessons to be posted at once. This obviously would vary based on age and accessibility to technology.

6. Keep communication brief and clear

In speaking with your students' families, be clear about your available times and office hours, as you too will be dealing with all of the stressors of Coronavirus, including teaching from home without childcare. Parents shouldn't be expecting a permanently on-call teacher, so make sure they know when you are available and how to reach you. Reclarify the 24 hours response time you've always maintained on responding to parent emails (or whatever your boundary is).
Need help with online resources? We've built a list with over 70 options here. Feeling overwhelmed? Share your thoughts on imperfect online learning. Join fellow educators in the WeAreTeachers Chat group on Facebook to get support from others just like you.

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Teachers, The Next Weeks of Online Learning Don't Have to Be Perfect

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Teachers love their students deeply and want nothing more than for them to have a positive experience regardless of circumstance. So when thousands of teachers heard that they had a mere 24 hours to move instruction online, they naturally started working harder to figure out logistics.

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Scroll down and click Middle and High School Online Resources. Great resources for Science classes.

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With school districts starting the 2020/2021 school year online, parents and teachers are continually looking for online learning resources. Teachers have been tasked with delivering lesson plans and classroom activities as part of distance learning. Parents are trying to keep students on track with their studies and educational growth. We are here to help! This growing list offers a wealth of resources for all ages of students, parents, and teachers!

Go to:

Online Resources for Kids in Grades K-5

These sites have ready-to-use lesson plans and activities for a vast amount of subjects for younger students.

What It Is: This comprehensive program covers a wide variety of subjects for students aged 2-8 (Pre-K through second grade). It offers more than 850 self-guided lessons across 10 levels. A companion program focuses on teaching English as a second language for this age group.

What It Is: This MMO game gives kids something other online learning resources may lack: a sense of community. Students up to age 13 play games to learn across a range of topics (math, reading, social studies, science, and more), while also creating their own online persona and interacting with others in the game.

What It Is: Daily free resources and activities in American Sign Language and English, for young deaf children ages 3-10. They offer weekly activities based on their award-winning VL2 Storybook Apps to support bilingual language development. It is run by Motion Light Lab, part of a research center on Visual Language and Visual Learning at Gallaudet University.

What They're Offering: Free access to Motion Light Lab's award-winning VL2 ASL Storybook Apps. Every week, the Motion Light Lab offers a free Storybook App which includes daily offerings in ASL and English, live storytelling "sign aloud" on Mondays, and an ASL/English literacy lesson live-streamed every Wednesday on YouTube featuring deaf narrators and accompanying worksheets for a deeper dive into each story.

What It Is: BrainPop offers in-depth learning on topics across the curriculum for upper elementary and middle school students. Each topic includes videos, quizzes, related reading, and even coding activities. Teachers have access to planning and tracking resources too. They also offer BrainPop Jr., specially designed for younger kids.

What They're Offering: All schools get free access to their COVID-19/coronavirus online learning resources for talking to students about the topic.

What It Is: A character education video subscription series for K-2 students that highlight positive character traits, exemplified by prominent figures.

What It Is: A nonprofit and charity, Classroom Champions connects volunteer Olympians, Paralympians, Student-Athletes, and Professional Athletes to K-8 classrooms through a social and emotional based curriculum and mentorship experience.

What It Is: A fun and educational game-based environment where kids learn to code without any prior experience. After completing CodeMonkey's award-winning coding courses, kids will be able to navigate through the programming world with a sense of confidence and accomplishment.

What It Is: Turn writing assignments into something amazing with the illustrations, animations, and sound effects available. Kids can even write their own choose-your-own-adventure story!

What It Is: This research-based emotional skills program is designed for children ages 4-11 and gives kids practical tools for dealing with impulse control, frustration, and acting out. Emotional ABCs teaches children how to figure out what they're feeling, why they're experiencing that emotion, and how to make better choices for lifetime emotional resilience.

What It Is: Three beta-stage eLearning tools from the scientists in their R&D division to help improve reading, writing, and English language speaking skills.

What It Is: A science teaching resource that brings school science standards to life through fun and educational videos paired with lesson plans, activities, quizzes, reading material, discussion questions, and more.

What It Is: Using multimedia Interactive Posters, students can express ideas with ease by combining images, graphics, audio, video, and text on one digital canvas!

What It Is: Happy Numbers helps teachers deliver quality math instruction, monitor progress, and math growth-all remotely. Students can access Happy Numbers from any Internet-enabled device (even a smartphone!).

What it is: HearBuilder, from Super Duper Publications, is an online, research-based, foundational literacy program. It helps students in PreK-Grade 5 strengthen skills in the essential pre-literacy areas of following directions, sequencing, auditory memory and phonological awareness.

What they're offering: HearBuilder is available free for 60 days. Teachers, parents and therapists can access self-directed activities and short and targeted tasks for students, as well as tools to monitor student progress. HearBuilder is accessible at school or during distance learning.

What It Is: Highlights @ Home is a new, free service for families and teachers that delivers themed content bundles twice a week from the well-known children's magazine creator, Highlights.

What It Is: iknowit is a site with over 500 common-core aligned activities and math games for students in the elementary grades. The site keeps track of progress, offers graphical hints and explanations, and there are also animated characters to cheer students along.

What They're Offering: A free 30 day trial with unlimited access and no credit card required.

What It Is: A platform for reading comprehension passages and skill assessment in early education and home schooling.

What It Is: Mentoring Minds impacts millions of students every day by partnering with principals and teachers across the country to improve student achievement and teach critical thinking. Find educator resources that focus on the 9 traits of Critical Thinking.

What They're Offering: Free coloring book in English and Spanish, as well as a new animated video series.

What It Is: Mindsets Live Classes and Open Math Challenges help teachers & families keep learning going in math, science, & STEAM with fun and creative real-world problem-solving.

What It Is: This popular differentiated learning site provides instruction across a wide array of elementary subjects. Available for at-home instruction and classroom instruction, online training on effectively using the site is also available.

What It Is: PebbleGo offers safe, interactive online research resources on topics selected by their teachers for students K-3.

What It Is: Hands-on, minds-on learning can happen anywhere and everywhere. If you're looking for STEMspiration because of an unexpected homeschooling need, you're in the midst of an uncommon education experience, or you just want to have some STEM fun, Pitsco has great resources that are always available for free.

What It Is: Produced by RedRover, Kind News magazine is a Parent's Choice Approved Award winning children's magazine that inspires readers to explore the relationship between people and animals. It includes engaging articles, colorful illustrations, activities, and games to help kids explore the relationship between people and animals and develop knowledge and skills necessary for empathy and kindness.

What They're Offering: KindNews.org includes free lesson plans, links to past issues, and humane-themed books.

What It Is: Scholastic created the Scholastic Learn at Home website to provide students with an array of learning journeys that span various content areas. Subscriptions include several learning opportunities per day, including projects based on articles and stories, virtual field trips, reading and geography challenges, and more.

What It Is: Seekadoo is a safe, kid-friendly search engine app for children ages 3-13. Seekadoo's content database is carefully curated to ensure appropriate material for children and integrated ad-blocking eliminates tracking and monetization of children's data so their digital footprints remain private.

What It Is: The Square Panda Smart Letters playset engages children's tactile and kinesthetic as well as visual and auditory senses, because neuroscience shows that early readers learn best in a multisensory environment.

What It Is: An online learning tool which provides personalized math and spelling practice. It adapts questions to each student, using engaging games and rewards for effort and achievement to build their confidence, and is proven to accelerate progress. Teachers can set focused work to consolidate existing knowledge and get real-time feedback on each individual child, making it an ideal home learning tool.

What it is: Super Duper Publications has created an online library of its most popular print materials to provide access for teachers and parents doing distance and hybrid/blended learning.

What they're offering: The Super Duper Digital Library is available at a discounted rate of 199.95 for an annual subscription or $19.95 for a monthly subscription. It provides more than 365 standards-based online resources (with more being added daily) for students PreK-Grade 5. Resources include unique, engaging instructional games, cards, and worksheets to target specific skills, such as basic concepts, literacy, grammar, social skills, critical thinking, sequencing, listening, early skills, articulation, phonemic awareness, memory, motor skills, sensory integration, phonics, reading, and more.

What It Is: Super Star Online, by Help Me 2 Learn, is a supplemental reading, phonics, and math program featuring a wide variety of songs, interactive activities, and games in an engaging and easy-to-use format. Features include the Super Star Motivational and Data Tracking System.

What It Is: Super Teacher Worksheets has tens of thousands of printable teaching resources for Kindergarten through 5th grade teachers and parents working with Pre-K through 5th grade students. Topics include math, reading, writing, phonics, grammar, spelling, science, and social studies.

What It Is: A digital series that aims to give young people a fun and active way to use their imaginations while learning about the process of creating theater.

What It Is: A nationwide writing curriculum designed for teachers, administrators, and parents. It takes away the stress of finding and developing a curriculum for their students.

What It Is: A program for PreK-1st grade students and those with special needs to learn to write their letters, numbers, and shapes using fun visuals, rhythmic chants, and repetition.

What It Is: A web-based keyboarding program that teaches students how to type and has unique transdisciplinary Common Core and NGSS aligned content provided through its lessons.

What It Is: Virtual Field Trips specializes in K-8 social studies, life science, geography, and ancient civilization curriculum content. Their website has online learning videos and quizzes along with a list of the national and state Standards that the videos align with.

What It Is: An easy-to-use platform designed to empower K-8 students to master math content at their own pace.

Online Learning Resources for Grades 6-12

Use these ready-to-implement resources in your virtual classrooms for older learners.

BBC My World Media Literacy

What It Is: A complete web-based math curriculum designed to help students ages 8-13 deepen their understanding of math.

What It Is: Math lessons, skills practice resources, and at-home learning videos for grade 6-12 students.

What It Is: NativeAccent delivers spoken English skills practice with targeted feedback to students on their computers and mobile devices using advanced speech recognition and A.I. technologies.

What It Is: Software engineers from some of the leading technology companies, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are volunteering their time to help students learn how to code while schools are closed.

What It Is: Free, interactive virtual classes open to students, teachers, and anyone else interested in learning to code in a fun and engaging manner through game development. The program is aligned to ISTE Standards for computer science education.

What It Is: GeoInquiries™ are free, standards-based, online explorations of maps and data about a wide variety of content plus an initial introduction. Any school can also request a free account with logins for teachers and students, so they can create, save, and share content, with free Mapping Hour videos to instruct teachers and parents.

What They're Offering: Free online content and accounts for schools on an interactive mapping platform. Learn More.

What It Is: Everydae is an online SAT math prep program. 10-minute micro lessons match busy schedules. Built by industry experts with 17+ years industry experience.

What It Is: Teaches STEM and STEAM with a game design focus. GameSalad is best suited for 6th grade and up depending on student readiness. Detailed instructions for students and full lesson plans for teachers make a great introduction to coding.

What It Is: A unique cultural immersion resource for Spanish, French and German language learning for grades 6-12. iCulture offers travel videos, day in the life videos, current news articles, and songs that are all 100% target language, age and school appropriate, and include topics of interest to teens and young adults.

What It Is: Popfizz CS is a computer science education platform for grades 6-12. Popfizz offers a wide range of online student courses and professional development for educators.

What They're Offering: All their tools are easily accessible on their website for free.

What It Is: An interactive AP Biology course with engaging content and interactive activities in the form of quizzes and flashcards to provide immediate reinforcement of the material. Teachers can assign portions of the course to their students, and track their progress. Or students can work independently and track their own progress!

What It Is:Thousands of free study guides, test prep, and video learning resources.

What It Is: Resources include free trials to Vernier Video Analysis™ and Pivot Interactives, the Vernier Physics with Video Analysis e-book and extended demo of the LoggerPro software needed to complete the experiments, Scratch coding activities, experiment content and access from ADInstruments and LabArchives, and more than 200 experiments with sample data covering a large range of subjects. With these tools, teachers can help students form a deep understanding of key scientific concepts outside the classroom and laboratory.

What It Is: VidCode is an online coding and computer science curriculum specifically for teens. It teaches JavaScript, web programming, design, and more.

What It Is: Online close reading instruction, leveled authentic texts with comprehension quizzes, and gamified vocabulary for grades 6-12.

K-12 Online Learning Resources

These sites have lesson plans and activities ready to go on a variety of subjects for any grade.

What It Is: A comprehensive suite of digital solutions that significantly accelerate literacy and deepen learning across the content areas.

What They're Offering: Achieve3000 Literacy at Home Digital provides access to engaging non-fiction articles at 3 reading levels. Sign up for a free account here. Additionally, they are offering Literacy Printable Packets for students who do not have internet access at home.

What It Is: K-12 personalized online math instruction that provides each student with a unique study path through skills at each level. Individual study plans are prescriptive, adaptive, and automatically assigned

What It Is: An eBook hosting platform for schools and libraries.

What It Is: BoomWriter offers a variety of tools, features, and resources that lets teachers conduct fiction, nonfiction, and vocabulary-focused writing assignments. BoomWriter inspires students to write on any subject and integrates easily with existing curriculum. Try it for ELA, Social Studies/History, Science, and even Math.

What It Is: A digital portfolio that allows students and educators to shape knowledge and ideas into practical, usable, and shareable work. With bulb, educators can track progress, measure competency, and create dynamic curricula or use one of their templates.

What It Is: A PreK-12 educational company that provides a supplemental, and highly differentiated literacy digital curriculum with demonstrated efficacy.

What It Is: CCC! Streaming Media helps students visualize printed text and aids their understanding of complex concepts. The content has been vetted by educators and aligned to Common Core and state standards, and is supplemented with Teacher's Guides, Student Activities, and Knowledge Checks (quizzes).

What It Is: Century was designed as an intervention tool to identify and remedy gaps in a student's education. It uses artificial intelligence to tailor the learning experience to the learner, much like an actual teacher in the classroom would.

What It Is: ClassHook offers quality media clips on every conceivable topic. Pre-curated playlists make it easier to find what you need for the subject at hand.

What It Is: Crabtree Publishing Company is dedicated to producing high-quality books and educational products for K-9+. Through their website, different selections of their books can be accessed along with free online resources that are included in a Crabtree subscription.

What It Is: The Critical Thinking Co. publishes award-winning PreK-12+ educational textbooks, activity books, e-books, and apps that help children become better problem-solvers. The approach is unique: help kids develop foundational reasoning & critical thinking skills while learning the core subjects (reading, writing, math, science, and social studies).

What It Is: Discovery Education provides online textbooks, multimedia content, and professional development support for virtual classrooms and teachers. Daily DE offers supplemental learning activities, including virtual field trips and lessons, for both educators and parents that will update daily to align with a new educational theme.

What It Is: Innovative math and science online solutions that are fun to use and really work. Gizmos, Reflex, and Science4Us are used in classrooms in every state and over 50 countries worldwide.

What It is: Hip-hop videos and instructional activities that promote literacy and spark creativity.

What It Is: Follett offers over 1,000 PreK-12 titles in science, social studies, language arts, math, and more. AV2 World Languages features high-interest titles in 10 different languages with full audio support. Parents and students will find these resources interactive, easy to use and a great way for students to independently explore a new topic.

What It Is: Interdisciplinary, curriculum-aligned resources to support online learning from Pre-K through undergraduate; Live and on-demand training materials to help optimize existing resources; Professional development eBooks to help transition to and strengthen virtual learning and Authoritative Gale resources on health-related topics and global issues.

What It Is: A math practice program for concept mastery and retention.

What They're Offering: Free, unlimited trial usage for schools until July 2021.

What It Is: Original, fully-customizable musicals that not only enhance Reading and Communication skills, but also employ Arts Integration and Social Emotional Learning to encourage strong character development both onstage and off.

What It Is: A website loaded with standards-aligned lessons, games, and activities that will keep K-8 students engaged while learning from home.r.

What It Is: A highly adaptable program that teaches challenging life skills to school students with various special needs. The full program offers 39 lessons, 65 videos, visual components, and role plays around the topics of hygiene, social skills, relationships development, and health that can be implemented both virtually and face-to-face.

What It Is: InferCabulary is a web-based, research-backed, device-agnostic, K-12, fun, game-based, visual approach for teaching nuanced vocabulary that simultaneously improves students' critical thinking skills. InferCabulary is the opposite of rote memorization of definitions - they mimic the act of avid readership so students deeply learn words and improve comprehension.

What It Is: Do you Kahoot! Teachers have loved this fun online quiz game platform for years. Here's why we're into it.

What They're Offering: Kahoot! Basic is free for educators and students, but they're also currently offering their Premium distance learning tools for free. Learn more here- Kahoot!

What It Is: A weekly current events-based program. It presents engaging and important stories from around the world in a newsmagazine format.

What It Is: An online core supplement for grades 1-12 that was designed to be used in classrooms to help teachers with increasing responsibilities and numbers of students.

What It Is: At the Lerner Bookshelf, they've set up two collections of eBooks (Grades PreK-5 and Grades 6-12) that allow for unlimited simultaneous access by every student in a school. They also offer reading book lists, videos, educational downloads, information on authors who are available for virtual visits, and more.

What It Is: Listenwise teaches students to be better listeners using podcasts, comprehension questions, and quizzes.

What It Is: MAD-learn's web-based mobile app development tool is a holistic set of modules for students to experience the software development lifecycle firsthand.

What It Is: NGSS based science lessons for 4th-8th graders that can easily be done from home.

What It Is: This is the only online learning management system for teaching music at all age levels. Band practice might be off the table for now, but students can still work on theory, notation, sight-reading and more.

What It Is: The NASA STEM Engagement site offers STEM resources, activities, lesson plans, virtual field trips, and more! Also check out NASA Home and City to find out how space travel impacts your daily life.

What They're Offering: Explore the Hubble Telescope and listen to astronauts share their stories. All for free!

What They're Offering: All resources are free.

What It Is: News-O-Matic features five daily news stories specifically for kids, written at a variety of reading levels from grades K through 8. Every story is translated by native speakers from English into Spanish, French, and Arabic. And all these texts, at all levels and languages, are read out loud so kids can listen along. Teachers have access to a special dashboard to track students' reading progress, change their reading levels, and see students' answers to comprehension questions for each article.

What it is: PBLWorks, the leading provider of professional development for high-quality Project Based Learning (PBL), has created a free eBook to support high-quality Project Based Learning at home.

What they're offering: This Teachable Moment, a free downloadable eBook offers a primer on Project Based Learning (PBL) and 21 easy implemented, "follow the recipe" PBL projects, informed by educational research and designed for children of all ages. Projects such as creating a cooking show focused on family recipes and the history behind them, or creating a plan for a new school that meets our new reality, engage children in real-world issues and activities that matter to them while also teaching concepts like literacy, math and more.

What It Is: Perfection Next is a digital learning platform offering access to our entire catalog of digital resources including AMSCO Advanced Placement, Language Arts, Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Languages.

What It Is: A web-app that gives teachers and students a unique way to create stories, demonstrate learning, and enhance writing assignments - in any subject - through digital comics. Users can explore topics in Math, Science, Social Studies, History, English, Art, or any other subject. They can also choose images from popular content, books and movies like The Hunger Games or The Outsiders, plus other topics like the solar system, black history, or the environment - all Common Core aligned.

What They're Offering: All-access for free for 30 days during the COVID-19 crisis. Learn more here- Pixton EDU.

What It Is: Quill offers a set of diagnostic assessments and independent practice activities that focus on grammar, sentence construction, and other writing and literacy skills. All the while, Quill provides teachers with free, in-depth data reports on student performance.

What It Is: An online guided reading tool that "listens" while a student reads a selection aloud, detects when they falter, and provides immediate intervention in the form of correct pronunciation.

What It Is: Teachers and parents can keep their child's reading instruction moving forward with Reading Horizons' library of virtual webinars and lessons.

What It Is: Readorium helps students learn nonfiction reading strategies as they build rich background knowledge in science at school or at home.

What It Is: RoboKind's virtual coding course will help districts provide elementary and middle school students with engaging computer science content during this unexpected period of school closures.

What It Is: Rozzy Learning has engaging lesson plans and other resources for science, social studies, math, and STEM for K-8th grade.

What It Is: This brand-new virtual classroom platform integrates PowerPoint, Zoom video webinars, and Slido quizzes into one streamlined package.

What It Is: SMART Learning Suite is a virtual classroom platform that easily integrates everything you already have on Google Drive or in Microsoft documents. You can add videos and other online resources as needed.

What It Is: Join their expert staff in learning about awesome topics like 3D design, video game design, coding, and more all from home. Their staff deliver lessons virtually and are available live to help provide targeted guidance and assistance to students as they work through awesome activities and projects.

What It Is: Study Island provides standards-based practice, test preparation, and formative assessments in grades K-12. Students get feedback to guide their learning and educators get immediate data to determine who needs intervention and who is ready to move on.

What It Is: A K-12 publishing company that creates science and social studies curriculum to enable educators to improve their ability to engage students in a diverse classroom.

What It Is: With Tyto Online, students solve authentic science problems as they learn, using a video game to power their experience. 'Tyto Online' is NGSS-aligned, covering life science and some Earth and space science.

What It Is: These online learning resources are specifically for those who teach French, Spanish, and ESL. Students get audio and video, interactive writing and speaking exercises, and more.

What It Is: Students and families can access news stories about the world, politics, United States, science, sports, and more. Xyza also recently launched www.newsicle.co where students try and answer one news-related trivia quiz every weekday.

What They're Offering: Completely free and unlimited access to 1000+ Xyza: News for Kids articles.

Remote Learning and Virtual Classroom Platforms

These sites allow you to follow your existing lesson plans by creating your own online learning resources. Some also provide the platforms you need to host virtual interactive multimedia classrooms.

What It Is: With Bloomz, teachers and schools save time by having all the tools they need to communicate with today's parents and students in one easy-to-use (and free) app.

What It Is: Life Skills Academy by Conover is an online video library designed to be used outside the classroom so parents or guardians can help learners with disabilities learn how to function independently at home, work, or in the community. Based on the concept of video modeling, users watch someone do the desired behavior and then do it themselves.

What It Is: EduGuide saves schools time and money by efficiently multiplying their student support system, building self-motivation that keeps students learning, even when they are remote. EduGuide provides a simple way for every student to both be mentored by a caring adult and learn to mentor their peers on key social-emotional SEL habits that boost student success.

What It Is: Teachers can access a collection of learning paths from some of the most well-known thought leaders in education covering topics such as Understanding by Design, Habits of Mind, Social Emotional Learning, Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, Personalized Learning, and Growth Mindset.

What It Is: Get the most out of Google Classroom and other Google tools with this platform. They offer webinars and other resources to help teachers create and manage the best virtual classrooms.

What It Is: A cloud-based solution from Impero Software to help schools manage and record student safety and health information, from first aid to COVID-19 symptom tracking, to more complex mental health issues. Impero back:drop gives districts a way to keep track of and communicate about potential concerns safely and securely and eliminates the need for paper-based reporting systems.

What They're Offering: Impero has made Impero back:drop free indefinitely, helping schools fill a critical need for staying on top of student mental and physical concerns during the pandemic and beyond.

What It Is: A collaborative online image and video editor with a cloud storage Workspace. Teachers can make video lessons to send to students for remote learning, students can work together on a group project, and classrooms can share multimedia projects with each other.

What It Is: Projector App helps teachers project their real word notes onto a professional-looking, virtual blackboard.

What it is: PBLWorks, the leading provider of professional development for high-quality Project Based Learning (PBL), has created a free eBook to support high-quality Project Based Learning at home.

What they're offering: This Teachable Moment, a free downloadable eBook offers a primer on Project Based Learning (PBL) and 21 easy implemented, "follow the recipe" PBL projects, informed by educational research and designed for children of all ages. Projects such as creating a cooking show focused on family recipes and the history behind them, or creating a plan for a new school that meets our new reality, engage children in real-world issues and activities that matter to them while also teaching concepts like literacy, math and more.

What It Is: A cloud-based lesson delivery software service that energizes students with polling, timed assessments, interactive lessons, activities, and millions of immersive resources from educators around the world. ClassFlow is certified by iKeepSafe as compliant with federal and state requirements for handling protected personal information, including student data, and is safely used by over 4.5 million students worldwide.

What It Is: SafeToNet makes the digital world safer for children to explore and enjoy. Its award-winning AI-powered software safeguards children and their mental wellbeing when using their mobile devices, without sacrificing their privacy. The app provides an intelligent safeguarding keyboard and wellbeing tools that respond in real-time to help children make better decisions online, identify when they are under threat or distress, and prevent messages from being sent that could harm them and others.

What It Is: Free K-12 Math, ELA, Science and Social Studies resources! Create effective classwork and assignments that have been proven to increase performance. All content is designed to engage and challenge students at their own level./li>

What It Is: Keep your music students practicing at home with this online music classroom. You can track student progress, and they'll get instant feedback from the online tools.

What It Is: More than just a computer, classroom, STEM kits, or a project - SmartLabs are a comprehensive and immersive solution.

What It Is: StudyBee is a grading and student feedback system that extends Google Classroom functionality, with the ability to link assignments to custom or standardized educational objectives from the US.

What It Is: A collaborative presentation tool used for all grade levels that works perfectly for the remote classroom.

What It Is: An online bookmarker for educators. Committed to making personalized learning and educational technology easily accessible for everyone, everywhere.

What It Is: Companies across the world use Webex to keep their teams in contact remotely. They offer lots of tools that are ideal for taking your classes online.

What It Is: Rather than fighting smartphones, Wooclap turns them into an exceptional learning tool. Wooclap is a free tool to help maintain interactivity and effective pedagogy. Their goal is to capture the attention of students to improve their learning whether they're in the classroom or at home taking an online course.

What It Is: Project your lessons in group settings with Zoom. You can even record the sessions for students who need to review later. This video and audio conferencing tool has a chat functionality where students can ask questions as you teach.

Professional Development & Training

These sites assist with continuing professional development and curriculum for teachers.

What It Is: Nomadic is a digital learning pioneer launching a Remote Work Boot Camp to help newly remote folks get better equipped to face our current working reality.
Feeling overwhelmed? You're definitely not alone. Join fellow educators in the WeAreTeachers Chat group on Facebook to get support from others just like you.

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350+ Amazing Websites For Kids Learning at Home

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Looking for distance learning and online learning resources for kids, tweens, and teens at home? Parents and teachers, we've got you covered.

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Thanks to the many of you who reached out to share that this post helped you through last spring's sudden transition to emergency remote teaching.
If you are just now coming to this article, note that this was published in March 2020. It's original audience is for educators, especially college professors, with little or no pedagogical or technological training in online teaching and who, during the early days of the pandemic, were unlikely to be able to get help from overwhelmed course designers or IT departments. As I state clearly at the end, this post is for that moment, when doing what might have felt like a "bad" job (not learning every new piece of technology, not editing your videos to reduce the "umms," not boning up on 20 years of online pedagogy) allowed us to meet the needs of students best. To learn how to create high-quality online courses even as resources and support continues to be limited in many ways, explore other posts on this blog, including the series Online-by-Design, which offers easy-to-apply suggestions for building online courses informed by compassion for students, respect for content, and sound digital pedagogy.

I'm absolutely serious.

For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put some or all of the remainder of their semester online, now is a time to do a poor job of it. You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that's the best way to help your students learn.

If you are getting sucked into the pedagogy of online learning or just now discovering that there are some pretty awesome tools out there to support students online, stop. Stop now. Ask yourself: Do I really care about this? (Probably not, or else you would have explored it earlier.) Or am I trying to prove that I'm a team player? (You are, and don't let your university exploit that.) Or I am trying to soothe myself in the face of a pandemic by doing something that makes life feel normal? (If you are, stop and instead put your energy to better use, like by protesting in favor of eviction freezes or packing up sacks of groceries for kids who won't get meals because public schools are closing.)

Remember the following as you move online:

1. Your students know less about technology than you think. Many of them know less than you. Yes, even if they are digital natives and younger than you.

2. They will be accessing the internet on their phones. They have limited data. They need to reserve it for things more important than online lectures.

3. Students who did not sign up for an online course have no obligation to have a computer, high speed wifi, a printer/scanner, or a camera. Do not even survey them to ask if they have it. Even if they do, they are not required to tell you this. And if they do now, that doesn't mean that they will when something breaks and they can't afford to fix it because they just lost their job at the ski resort or off-campus bookstore.

4. Students will be sharing their technology with other household members. They may have LESS time to do their schoolwork, not more.

5. Many will be working MORE, not fewer, hours. Nurses, prison guards, firefighters, and police officers have to go to work no matter what. As healthcare demand increases but healthcare workers get sick, there will be more and more stress on those who remain.

6. Some of your students will get sick. Others will be caring for people who are ill.

7. Many will be parenting.

8. Social isolation contributes to mental health problems.

9. Social isolation contributes to domestic violence.

10. Students will be losing their jobs, especially those in tourism and hospitality.

All of these factors mean that your students are facing more important battles today than your class-if they are even able to access it.
Photo by NosUA from Getty Images.
As you put your class online:

1. Put your energy into the classes that are required for your major or minor or that are required by other majors or minors. Electives and GE classes are an important part of a good education, but we have already decided that what students learn in any one of those courses is not vital. (The exceptions to this are GE courses that are required for a major.) For some of us, this is every class we teach, but for others, we have the ability to choose to focus our attention.

2. Do not require synchronous work. Students should not need to show up at a specific time for anything. REFUSE to do any synchronous work.

3. Do not record lectures unless you need to. (This is fundamentally different from designing an online course, where recorded information is, I think, really important.) They will be a low priority for students, and they take up a lot of resources on your end and on theirs. You have already built a rapport with them, and they don't need to hear your voice to remember that.

4. Do record lectures if you need to. When information cannot be learned otherwise, include a lecture. Your university already has some kind of tech to record lectures. DO NOT simply record in PowerPoint as the audio quality is low. While many people recommend lectures of only 5 minutes, I find that my students really do listen to longer lectures. Still, remember that your students will be frequently interrupted in their listening, so a good rule is 1 concept per lecture. So, rather than a lecture on ALL of, say, gender inequality in your Intro to Soc course, deliver 5 minutes on pay inequity (or 15 minutes or 20 minutes, if that's what you need) and then a separate lecture on #MeToo and yet another on domestic violence. Closed caption them using the video recording software your university provides. Note that YouTube also generates closed captions [edited to add: they are not ADA compliant, though]. If you don't have to include images, skip the video recording and do a podcast instead.

5. Don't fuss too much about the videos. You don't need to edit out the "umms" or the postal carrier ringing the doorbell. Editing is a waste of your time right now.

6. Make all work due on the same day and time for the rest of the semester. I recommend Sunday night at 11:59 pm. Students who are now stay-at-home parents will need help from others to get everything done, and that help is more likely to arrive on a weekend. While, in general, I dislike 11:59 due dates because work done that late is typically of lower quality, some people will need to work after the kids go to bed, so setting the deadline at 9 or 10 pm just doesn't give them enough time.

7. If you use a textbook, your publisher probably has tests that you can download directly into your learning management system (LMS). Now is the time to use them. Despite publishers' best efforts, these tests quickly float around online, so take a few minutes to add some anti-cheating protections. First, organize questions into test banks and have them fed to students at random. For example, if you want to ask two questions about pay inequity, select 5 of them from the test bank, and have your LMS feed two of them to students at random. This makes it MUCH harder for students to work together, because they will never get the same exact test as a peer. Second, change the wording on the questions so they can't easily paste them into Google. In example questions, changing the name of the person in the example is one fast way to make the questions harder to locate online.

8. Allow every exam or quiz to be taken at least twice, and tell students that this means that if there is a tech problem on the first attempt, the second attempt is their chance to correct it. This will save you from the work of resetting tests or quizzes when the internet fails or some other tech problem happens. And since it can be very hard to discern when such failures are really failures or students trying to win a second attempt at a quiz or test, you avoid having to deal with cheaters.

9. Do NOT require students to use online proctoring or force them to have themselves recorded during exams or quizzes. This is a fundamental violation of their privacy, and they did NOT sign up for that when they enrolled in your course. Plus, they are in the privacy of their homes, sometimes with children who will interrupt them. It may be impossible for them to take a test without interruption. Circumvent the need for proctoring by making every exam open-notes, open-book, and open-internet. The best way to avoid them taking tests together or sharing answers is to use a large test bank.

10. You have already had some kind of in-class work, I'm guessing, so you do not need to further authenticate their identities on exams. If you are suspicious that a student is cheating-for example, someone was previously performing very poorly on in-class assessments and is now scoring very well, which might make you think that they've hired someone else to take the class for them-address that situation individually.

11. Remind them of due dates. It might feel like handholding, but be honest: Don't you appreciate the text reminder from your dentist that you have an appointment tomorrow? Your LMS has an announcement system that allows you to write an announcement now and post it later. As you put your materials online, write an announcement reminding them of the due date to be released 24 hours before it is due. The morning of, send a note to everyone who has not yet turned it in. (In Canvas and Blackboard, you do this by going into your gradebook and right clicking on the header of the assignment. You'll see an option to email all students who have not yet completed the work. It takes less than 1 minute if you are already logged in.)

12. Alert them to any material that is not appropriate for children to watch, including minute markers for scenes of violence or nudity. Again, you need to assume that they are doing their work with children in the background.

13. Make everything self-grading if you can (yes, multiple choice and T/F on quizzes and tests) or low-stakes (completed/not completed).

14. Don't do too much. Right now, your students don't need it. They need time to do the other things they need to do.

15. Listen for them asking for help. They may be anxious. They may be tired. Many students are returning to their parents' home where they may not be welcome. Others will be at home with partners who are violent. School has been a safe place for them, and now it's not available to them. Your class may matter to them a lot when they are able to focus on it, but it may not matter much now, in contrast to all the other things they have to deal with. Don't let that hurt your feelings, and don't hold it against them in future semesters or when they come back to ask for a letter of recommendation.

****

This advice is very different from that which I would share if you were designing an online course. I hope it's helpful, and for those of you moving your courses online, I hope it helps you understand the labor that is required in building an online course a bit better.

Like what you read? Support it.

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Please do a bad job of putting your courses online

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Thanks to the many of you who reached out to share that this post helped you through last spring's sudden transition to emergency remote teaching. If you are just now coming to this article, note that this was published in March 2020. It's original audience is for educators, especially college professors, with little or no...

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ChemMatters engages students with real-world applications of scientific concepts they learn in the classroom.

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Whole modules - would be especially great for Integrated Phys/Chem class

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Designed to Inspire and Engage

UL Xplorlabs is an educational platform designed to encourage students to "solve through science." It is especially focused on engaging middle-school students during a time in their educational lives when interest in science is shown to decrease dramatically. Through interactive videos, instructional experiences, hands-on classroom activities and creative classroom challenges, this free, STEM-focused experience:

Builds scientific knowledge, passion, and commitment among students

Teaches key concepts related to the Next Generation Science Standards disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting and connecting concepts

Makes it simple to implement hands-on exercises in the classroom

Shows students that by using scientific inquiry to ask why a phenomenon happens, that they can solve real problems and help create innovative solutions for a safer world.

And that's not all. Expect new capabilities and prepare to investigate new topics as UL Xplorlabs continues to evolve and expand.

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UL Xplorlabs is an educational platform designed to encourage students to "solve through science." It is especially focused on engaging middle-school students during a time in their educational lives when interest in science is shown to decrease dramatically.

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If you haven't tried this tool yet, it is fabulous for interactive teaching/conversations

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Join the Peartember celebration for giveaways, exclusive templates, and more! Learn more >

EFFORTLESSLY BUILD ENGAGING INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT, RIGHT FROM GOOGLE SLIDES

The fastest way to transform presentations into classroom conversations

Imagine if you could engage every student in your class, every day. What if you could instantly see who's confused and who's ready for more? That's the power of Pear Deck. And now, with the Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on, you can add the magic of formative assessments and interactive questions to your presentations right from Google Slides.

Design brilliant slides & engage your class

Open up Google Slides & the Pear Deck sidebar

Design a new presentation or open an existing one in Slides. Just getting started with Google Slides? Upload your PowerPoint or Keynote lessons to Google Slides and get going!

DROP IN FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Our team of educators created a library of templates to support learning objectives typically found at the beginning, middle, and end of a class. Think: bell ringers, checks for understanding, exit tickets, and more. Simply drop in one of these templates for instant engagement and watch your class transform.

Create custom questions

You can always create your own custom activity or question from scratch. Use Text, Number Response, Multiple Choice, and Web Slide questions to engage students. Or upgrade to Pear Deck Premium to add Drawing and Draggable™ response types.

ADD AUDIO TO ANY SLIDE TYPE

With the Pear Deck Add-on, you can leave audio instructions, descriptions, or examples for your students to hear while they read the prompts and respond to Interactive Questions in your Pear Deck Slides presentations. Make a new recording instantly or upload one from your computer. The recordings you insert will play in the Student View of your live presentation Sessions, so it's perfect for any remote learning lesson!

Present with Pear Deck

Start your presentation and students will join your Session from any device with a web browser. As you advance your slides, students will be prompted to answer your questions! Students' answers can be displayed anonymously on the classroom projector, so instead of worrying about getting the right answer and feeling silly in front of peers, your students are putting ideas out there in a safe, anonymous way, discussing, and learning from each other.

GO DEEPER WITH THE tEACHER dASHBOARD

As an instructor, you can quickly see what each individual thinks on the Teacher Dashboard. Noticing a lot of wrong answers? Adapt! Take a pause, back up, re-explain. But don't forget to help the learners help each other: Why did some people choose this while others chose that? How can we find out the right answer? What else do we need to know?

INVITE TEACHERS TO YOUR SHARED tEACHER DASHBOARD

This feature enables teachers using Pear Deck Premium to share Session controls and valuable student insight with other designated educators, including student teachers, special educators, co-teachers, or even substitutes. With a real-time view of individual student work and the ability to guide and provide direct feedback, educators teaching together can better support the diverse needs of learners everywhere!

Using Videos, Animations and GIFs in your Pear Deck? Get ready to Power-up!

Want to show a video about the Mars Rover in your Pear Deck presentation? Need to carefully layer in information on a slide to reduce information overload? Found a perfect GIF of a plant emerging from its seed? If you want your videos, animations, and GIFs to play at full resolution when you present with Pear Deck, install the Power-Up Google Chrome extension.

The Power-Up is a free Google Chrome extension. Installing it ensures that videos, animation, and GIFs embedded in your Pear Deck slides play at full-resolution on the projector and student devices - exactly the way they should!

Install the Power-Up from the Chrome Web Store on the device you use in class. Now when you present with Pear Deck, the Power-Up magically enables the display of your videos, animations, and GIFs.

Get the Power-Up

Learn Pear Deck for Google Slides

Watch a video for self-guided Google training:

Or, dive into a self-paced Pear Deck for Google Slides practice deck:

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Pear Deck for Google Slides is the #1 Slides Add-on, making it effortless for educators to add interactive questions and formative assessments to their presentations.

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A free online platform for science education from Harvard University

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One of Butler's favorite resources for Biology classes- especially genetics and cellular topics

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Educators: Inspire your undergraduate and high-school AP biology students with resources on genetics and cell biology from Nature Publishing Group, home of Nature, the most cited scientific journal in the world.

Using our platform, you can customize your own eBooks for your students. Create an online classroom. Contribute and share content and connect with networks of colleagues.

Budding scientists also can find advice about effective science communication and career paths.

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From the publisher of Nature and Scientific American, Principles of Science is a series of textbooks designed for the world we live in today. The first textbook in the program, Principles of Biology, is a research-oriented, affordable interactive textbook for university-level introductory biology courses.

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Turn quizzes into games

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Gamify your teaching and create fun and engaging learning games for your class. Better yet, flip your classroom and have your students participate in creating tasks and challenges in the game.

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A great tool for students to record their own voice - show they understand a concept, a problem type or explain their viewpoint.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.