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I love that teachers and administrators are finding solutions to their community needs after the pandemic. Although, the article does stress that there is such a digital divide with education in our country. The solution from one teacher that created a new role for herself, helping families — sometimes with an app that parents can download to track kids' grades, or with strategies to build kids' executive function skills so they can succeed in remote learning, is amazing. Maybe every school district should have someone in that role to help parents to become more active partners in their kids' education and take learning out into the community as well.

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This article really hit home when it comes to online learning and the pandemic. The biggest struggle I had was getting my students to log in and be in class. What I did find helpful was conducting a weekly zoom meeting for parents only. It gave me the opportunity to help the parents navigate their kids through online activities and assignments. There were those students who couldn't log in because there wasn't anyone available to help them. Then there was the lack of wifi and devices at home. I know that due to the pandemic many things have been discovered and improved and I hope we continue to gap the digital divide.

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While reading this article I was taken back a couple of years to online learning. It was not great, some days were very hard, and at other times it was fun. I started my Zoom session with a song as my students slowly started to trickle in. The middle of my second full year back to in-person learning and I can agree with a lot of what the article was saying. Many of my students are behind for many reasons, but as a direct result of online learning. Some of the environments I witnessed were heartbreaking. I live in a rural area and connectivity was a major issue. One of the things that I learned from online learning is that we do not need to teach all of the things, it stresses our students out. We can be more intentional with what we do teach and still be able to move students forward towards success.

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This article did a great job of encompassing the challenges that I personally felt during remote learning. One part of this article that stood out to me was when a teacher felt like she was putting on her own home production of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I feel like so much had to go into putting together a zoom session. If I wanted it to be engaging to students, then I had to pull out all the stops. I also agree with the comment regarding being close to burnout and not receiving enough support. I felt like I was very much on my own to provide a whole new  way of teaching. I wish I had more training, ideas, and strategies provided during remote learning.

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This article touches on many concerns I still have about distant learning. I am aware that the likely hood of another pandemic is slim but these concerns should still be addressed by schools districts across the nation. Kindergarten and zoom do not mix. Parents may not have time to sit and be with them through an entire zoom school day. How do we know if they can log on and sit independently, most likely at that age they can't. Forming relations is incredibly important it's hard to create a relationship with a five year old who can't sit and zoom alone. Zoom is not an equitable form of education. The best model for younger children is the hybrid model. They need the social interaction and they learn better by doing at that age.

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The most eye opening piece of this article was the fact that so many students don't have proper accessibility.
The National Education Association recently reported, based on pre-pandemic census data, that one quarter of households with children ages 5 to 17 lacked either high-speed Wi-Fi, a computer or both. For households near the poverty line, the number was closer to half.
It just goes to show you that we do still have a long way to go with technology and can't overlook populations in our country that need access or at least offer and have it available.

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While reading this article, all I kept thinking about was my youngest son who started Kinder in the 20-21 school year. It started off all virtual and then went to only 2 hours a day in the classroom. For some kids, this was just fine, but for him, it was very difficult. He struggled and is still struggling because I think he is missing those key elements of Kindergarten that he should have learned. Last year while masks were on, he struggled with following directions and just staying in the classroom. Now this year with no masks, he is doing so much better. I don't know if his school has developed a better plan for him through his IEP, or if just seeing people's faces has made a huge difference for him.

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the part of this article that resonated the most with me was the importance of relationship-building through distance learning. All educators were transitioning to more tech-focused lesson planning but a lot of teachers who did the same things in terms of lesson delivery had varying results of the engagement. From my own experience, the amount that teachers were willing to invest in getting to know their students was the difference maker in regard to student engagement. My dog was a regular in my classes and we would take time out of class to check in and talk about our weekend plans or I would stick around in case students had questions or just wanted to talk to someone. I think now I would make it a more formal part of my lesson planning, but at the time it was much more casual and organic.

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As I was reading this article, I was getting flashbacks to when I was teaching online, and then when we went to the hybrid model. Fortunately in my school district, we were not mandated to teach online and in person simultaneously. We essentially did the flipped classroom where students who were not in class would complete asynchronous assignments, and then when they came to class I would build on the previous day's lessons. I must admit I liked having the small class size. However, not all students would complete their asynchronous assignments, which made it a bit of a challenge for me because I was building on a lesson that perhaps they never completed at home.

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I agree with much of the sentiment in this article. Distant Learning doing the pandemic brought about many issues. One of the biggest problems was students' absences, which affected student learning. While teaching online doing the pandemic, I only saw about 12 students (combined) from all of my periods a week. Some students did not have internet access, while others had issues with connecting to the internet. In some cases, students did not attend online class meetings because of the responsibilities that fell on them while being at home. I think the pandemic hurried us into a digital learning age for which no one was properly prepared, especially in rural areas with no cellular towers. I also think the pandemic brought to light certain issues within education that were already present, like student meeting grade-level standards for specific content areas and accessibility to technology. Some will suggest that the pandemic created a gap in learning because of distant learning. I believe the pandemic heightened more people's awareness of those learning gaps that already existed (it just widened the gap) way before the pandemic came into play.

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As I read the article I thought and reflected on my experience teaching online in the 20-21 school year. Teachers did everything they could to make learning possible, but unfortunately, some things are out of our control. The internet would lag and disconnect for so many of my students and even myself. Those students would miss important parts of the lesson or have to wait for me to log back on. It was frustrating. Instead of spending five hours a week with my students, I only spend two and half hours online with them. I had to get through my curriculum in less time. Students were struggling and lost motivation. I am now seeing the toll distance learning had on my students. I hope we have learned many lessons and can successfully teach virtually if we ever needed to again.

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Sadly, today I am seeing first hand the learning loss from the 5 points of the article.  I have students in high school that are still struggling with 4th and 5th grade math skills.  The impossible task of getting kids to turn on their camera and engaging with others really took its toll and we are seeing the educational destruction today.  The technological divide was evident.  Students couldn't connect or their signal went in and out throughout the lesson.  The socio-economic divide was just as prevalent.  I had students that were in charge of getting their younger brothers and sister online and learning or had cousins come to the house to do their learning without any adult help of supervision because they were forced to work.
The article makes me think that we have to take advantage of our time now and do our best to make our face to face time learning a rich experience.

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It was interesting to read these 5 points on what we learned with distance learning. I was lucky enough to have Google Classroom already set up before we went off into distance learning. I taught my kids how to log on and access assignments. Many teachers did not have that set up and they struggled getting assignments out to students. The second part that stood out was the learning loss, I did have many some students love distance learning and thrived in the situation because of the freedom, the majority were distracted with the various distractions at home, eating, pets, siblings, games etc. Reading this article definitely brought back those memories of being online and some of the struggles we had getting participation or even seeing our students. To this day, many kids will say hi and if I knew their name I would recognize them, but not their face.

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I am one educator happy to be back to in-person teaching because I felt many of my students missed out so much. After all, they needed more support to be successful at remote learning.  Many of my English learner students were already behind in their academic skills. When they expected to be digitally savvy, those criteria almost made it impossible for students to learn.  I mostly remember black screen boxes while we were on Zoom, and I had no idea who was there and who wasn’t. The article just reinforced my acknowledgment that the digital divide is a reality, and most educators in the classroom today are feeling the pain of that 18 months gap.  Currently, our school's teachers, administrators, and staff are analyzing the academic void our students are experiencing. We must adjust the curriculum and pacing so that students are not overwhelmed and have some room to breathe so that they just don’t give up.  The following upcoming years will be challenging, but I plan on staying around the teaching profession and contributing as much as possible.

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The data shows! Students ARE behind socially and academically. While we are making great progress with our students, they still had an incredibly difficult time with at-home learning. I have also noticed students' maturity and independence is behind what it usually is. Social-emotional learning and practices is so critical for our students. They came out of such a difficult time in critical developmental ages. From the article, it didn't occur to me about if a student moved, they may have lost internet. I just can't imagine being a kid during this time. What has been good with COVID is seeing such improvement in digital literacy with the students. Their ability to create an online product has been amazing and a great way to incorporate multiple modes of representation. Hopefully a situation like this doesn't happen again. But if it does, I know we will be more prepared to rise above.

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This article reminded me of the most challenging year of my teaching career. I was (and still am) so thankful that the majority of my students had the access to internet and a device to be able to have online school and the necessary resources. This article also reminded me of the disparities and the inequality in the US education system- and how prevalent COVID-19 has shown us that. It's so ironic that the teacher interviewed at the beginning of the article teaches in the Mission district in San Francisco- because that is where I teach now.

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I resonate 100% with the article. I remember the day we transitioned to virtual learning, I was nervous and skeptical about the effectiveness. It was definitely a challenge because it was like being a 1st year teacher all over again. The pandemic has affected many students, especially those that were not consistent with virtual learning due to the challenges that were mentioned throughout this article. When I taught at a large school the  gap was apparent and it was difficult to teach classes with a span of starting points and the issue still exists today in our classrooms. This is a great topic educators can reflect upon to create solutions that originate from the human-centered design process.

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I also recognized that the emotional connection to school was one of the things we lost during distance learning. I truly enjoy getting to know my students, and letting them see the authentic 'me' in return. During COVID, I saw masked faces in my classroom, or disengaged students at home "doing their time." It was such a difficult period for me, as a long-time educator, to feel overwhelmingly ineffective.
Unfortunately, I found that relationship-building was one of the deficiencies I faced during the pandemic. I recognize that for the kindergarteners in the article, there was a fairly direct focus on their mental well-being. I found that high school students had an expectation of dealing with it more like an adult, even though they were not necessarily equipped to deal with this hardship. Although I hope I never have to deal with this type of teaching in the future, I will definitely be better equipped to deal with their social-emotional well being.

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Reading this article was like traveling back in time. What stood out was point number 4 - hybrid teaching was extremely challenging. My school tried to do an rotating group schedule, in which each class was split into an A group and a B group. Students in the A groups would come to school in person, while the B group would be online and the next day, it would switch and the B groups would be in person while the A groups were online. It was confusing enough for teachers to remember which day it was; it was 10 times more confusing for students. And then we were told we couldn't mark students absent if they were supposed to come in person but ended up on zoom, so as the semester progressed, more students just ended up not coming in person at all. Not to mention the headaches that came from trying to help students over zoom, as well as in the classroom, all the while talking through a mask since we had students in the classroom with us. The saving grace was hearing from students (who did come in person) how much they enjoyed being at school again.

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When my school went virtual during the school year of 2020-2021 it was very challenging. In the last three months, my school chose to use the hybrid model, but it was challenging as the article stated. For us, we had the students interact with the online students through the virtual classroom that is Schoology and Big Blue Button. As much as I wanted my in-person 6th-grader students to communicate with their voices, many of them still chose to type out their responses. All of it is very challenging and I’m not sure if there could be solutions that could possibly make hybrid work. Unless overtime we come up with better solutions, procedures, and perhaps the students know what is expected of them.

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No district, no school, no teacher, no student was prepared for what happened in 2020. The pandemic shined light on how unprepared we were to go online. But some how we made it and teacher rose to the occasion of teaching online. This also opened the conversation about how technologically unprepared we were as well. Like the article stated, "Eight months after schools first shut down, how many students still can't sign on?". I had a student who never logged in after we closed down. I later learned that his mom did not know how to use email, she was never able to read my messages. The article also mentions households without reliable Wi-Fi. I personally had that happened to me. My internet would crash in the middle of my lesson. My opinion is that, so many people were connected that the bandwidth was unbale to support the amount of people online. We made it through it. Online learning may seem easy, but it's not made for everyone. My nephew, who is in college, hated online learning. He couldn't wait to go back to the classroom because he was struggling with his classes. Online learning has a type, and very few are able to fit this type.

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It's interesting to read this article that was written right in the middle of the pandemic. I wholeheartedly agree with all of 5 points. I continued to teach online in 21-22 and found most of these to still ring true. Students still had trouble connecting. The students who I could establish a relationship with did far better then those I could not reach. Unfortunately, the support from leadership was still lacking, but those of us who could support each other on our own, did our best. We collaborated on lessons, technology support, and creating fun activities to motivate our students. I think another article about what we are still learning since then is in order.

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My most significant takeaways from the reading and my year as an online teacher were that the digital divide was not only about access and that personal connections were just as important for the teacher as they are for the students.  Aside from technical access, the divide between what teachers understood about the use of technology and what the student experience actually looked like was a considerable challenge.  I also know that emotionally that school year was the most emotionally damaging for me in my career.  The process was almost completely without the positive energy that those small positive interactions with kids bring to the process each day.  I had no idea how much those interactions meant to the process of teaching and learning

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As I read this article, it made me so sad for all of the students who were affected by schools shutting down for COVID. There were certainly many lessons we learned about teaching and learning during that time in 2020. All 5 things talked about in the article just reinforced to me the importance of in person learning for so many children! But what I also learned was that there were students who actually thrived in the online format. Those were the students who were disciplined enough to attend zoom classes and actively participate. They felt safe to participate behind their computer screens as opposed to being live with other students. Educational choice stood out to me. The fact that so many students learn in different ways made me realize that for most students, in person schooling is most effective, however I see how remote learning can be best for certain students as well. Maybe both types of learning should be offered to families.

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When reading the article, I remembered those Zoom days where only half the students would show up for each period. The stress that the pandemic brought gave them zero motivation to focus on academics, especially since their priorities understandably lie with family and health. But fast-forwarding to when online learning became more organized and structured, there wasn't problem with attendance, but rather, a problem with whether students actually took away any learning from the lessons. Connecting with them was hard too, but I tried to make the best out of what I had called Wellness Wednesdays. Every Wednesday is when we run on traditional schedule and meet with each period for half an hour. I varied the activity for each week, ranging from origami to mindfulness activities to discussion posts, just really trying to connect with my students and give them a small break from academics. Many students thanked me for being considerate of their mental health and told me that they always looked forward to Wednesdays.

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As I made my way through this article, it definitely took me back to Spring of 2020, and all of the challenges we faced and attempted to overcome.  I felt every single issue mentioned in the reading.  Experiencing the digital divide was very challenging - even though my district provided chromebooks and hotspots for all students, there was a definite difference between participation and accessibility.  Some students had a parent who would sit right next to them, helping them navigate every aspect of distance learning, while others attempted to do it alone.  Some refused to ever turn on their camera during synchronous small group sessions, which made connecting with them extremely difficult.

One thing that distance learning really did make me appreciate was the day to day relationships that I have with my students. When we were virtual, I had many students (and parents) request that I meet with them individually in breakout rooms just to talk and connect. The issue was time - there simply was not enough time during the day to teach, do small groups, meet with various people, attend all of my required staff meetings, and then plan and prep for the following week. Parents did not have an appreciation for the work that was going on behind the scenes, and expected that I would be live all day - like I would be in person. However, that was just not possible, and it definitely impacted the relationships I was able to build with my students and their families. Needless to say, I appreciate being back in person now.