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there is pain in the way that you just wasted all that good meat, and also a very strong sense of dryness everywhere. On the surface its leathery and hard to get into, and on the inside its tasteless and boring. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

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Your favorite movie had everything a movie should have, so the sequel should too right? No. The plot doesn't make sense and the best thing it can be described as is "an attempt."

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It's like when you asked your mom to buy Cocoa Krispies at the store and she comes back with some organic version of it. It tastes like cardboard. It gets smushy quickly. It DOES NOT taste the same, but you just have to keep eating it until the box runs out then hopefully you can get the real one next time.

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On the simplest level, yes. They are the same thing. Though one is objectively better than the other. One is a (valiant) attempt replicate the other, but ultimately falls short. Where the other is blessed with elegance and simplicity the other is cursed with confusion and disarray. One of them is Canvas. The other is Classrom.

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with tiny little half-melted marshmallows floating at the top, the hot cocoa's gone cold. But nonetheless you take a sip, and it's still sweet, still full of the familiar chocolate-y goodness you remember.  Even though you drink the rest of it, the warm and fuzziness of your favorite drink isn't there. It tastes like room temperature chocolate milk.

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It's still Avatar but it's awful. They pronounce the name of main character wrong and it just feels off.

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Online school is like when you're in a piano recital, and your parents spend twenty minutes trying to set up their cameras or iPhone to get the perfect video of their child's performance. By the time they've taken the video, they realize they were so busy taking the video, they didn't catch the actual experience. Now, all they have is the video.

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We used to walk into the classroom to be greeted by our teachers and peers. Now, we roll out of bed, log onto our computers, and see our friends and teachers in small rectangles. It’s the difference between playing soccer with your team and kicking a ball against the wall by yourself. 

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it's like that off brand movie that tries so hard to be the real thing. But there are so many scenes where the acting, costumes or set are just off. You sometimes laugh at it and go with it, other times you want to flip the channel.

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online school is like using the worse glue because you ran out of the super glue. The super glue keeps everything together for a long time. The 2nd glue is a temporary solution. When you use the 2nd you have to readjust every couple of days and keep it from falling apart.

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It's like trying to grasp and hold onto someone that isn't really there. When I was young, I had those friends that no one else could see. They were in my head, and I believed that they could help me change the world. When I actually stepped out and met new people and made new friends, I left the imaginary world behind. Now, I feel like I've re-entered. A screen full of faces, seemingly close but so, so far away.

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Have you every tried to get a crayon or colored pencil out of the box but your fingers seem to be too big and time and time again it just slips and drop back into the box? Thats what it feels like when day after day you come to class trying to get a grasp of the knowledge that is technically available to you but seems to be slipping away every time you think you almost got it.

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It's like trying to win a race but you're stuck in the sand and everyone else is running on a track.

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The conversation is awkward, and unfamiliar. You’re scared that you’ll say something wrong, and end up staying silent, letting other people talk. It’s draining, and a little stressful. Distance learning is like talking to strangers.

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Online school is like when you're a little kid on a long road trip and you're road sick and in an awful mood. To try and make you feel better your parents give you their phone or a treat to try and make you feel better, or at least trick you into having a good time. By doing this you can pretend your enjoying yourself, but its really just a distraction.

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Online learning is like a text message is to a hand written letter.  Instant, automatic, fast, right away, can be confusing... I feel like my grandparents when they say they miss the work of writing long written letters with love, the love that you need to be patient about to be delivered.

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Virtual school is like watching a movie about the beauty of nature rather than experiencing it yourself. You get to see the flowers through the screen, but can't touch or smell them. You get to hear the birds chirping through the screen, but the sound of the crickets isn't captured.

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Portland , as we all know, is known for being bipolar when it comes to weather. One minute it could be 80 degrees with know clouds in the sky, the next it could be a thunderstorm. but there is somewhat of a middle ground. after it rains for the first time it weeks, the air is filled with an indescribable smell/ it goes right to the back of your nose and just sits with you. This, rain after sun smell, the aura around the world changes, mood shifts. one is not mad or happy, they just are, just like the smell. Its something you cant escape, like the calm before the storm

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One court, one net, one ball, two rackets, and two players. Oh, tennis, you must be thinking. I thought the same; I thought we would be playing tennis until college at least, to see where the career would take me. But ping pong? Fake court, smaller net, a ball as light as a feather, tiny paddles replacing rackets. And yet the players maintain their game faces, ready for whatever type of comes at them.

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Building legos without the instructions is always more enjoyable.  Sure there are some basic rules like where pieces can connect but you sort of make it up as you go. Online school is similar to following the directions step by step. Your still building something but it feels forced.

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Distance learning is like trying to figure out what happened in a day by reading a newspaper that has every other word redacted.

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School is a dead app, mocked when it was alive, but glorified and nostalgic when passed. It was comforting, because the same characters and same trends would pass through. Now, online school is Tiktok, originally foreign and hated, now mind-numbingly accepted as reality. It has it's own unique quirks that we enjoy, but it is fundamentally different from it's predecessor, and now we can't imagine a reality without it.

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online learning is like showing your friends a new restaurant inly to find that the food is mediocre and the service is sub-par. nobody is really having a good time but you have to keep being polite to not hurt the cook's feelings. the food is fine and it fills you up but it also fills you with the regret of choosing this place over your favorite brunch spot. not worth it.

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After serving an insane hit that won the Tennis match, we were relieved. Only to remember that we were playing online, a game against automated characters. There were no real tennis courts, we weren't breaking a sweet, and we were inside on a cold rainy day.

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When wearing COVID mask, there is an undeniable difficulty when trying to breath. However, the user has no choice, as COVID masks are essential to everyday life in 2020. This is so similar to distance learning. When participating in online schools, there is an underlying difficulty that is hard to place. It is no longer as straightforward as going to school in a fully academic environment. However, it is still required and essential to one's future.

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Digital and distance learning make me rely on waking up a bit earlier to make coffee. A bitter cup of coffee that was steeped too long and took on a charcoal color. Some people drink it as is, but you can add some sugar and milk to improve the taste. Yet nothing changes if you still don't like coffee.

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It's like google translate. They put school through google translate and virtual school came out. The translation is always missing pieces, not really making sense, and most importantly not easy to read or understand. You would have to really try to figure out what the translation meant, its hard.

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We became friends online. Met in digital rooms and exchanged experiences. Best friends really. I guess you could say. But we could never occupy the same space. Never learn each others innate and subconscious pattern of communication. So we were digital best friends. Which was empowering and toweringly expansive...in some ways. So maddeningly limited in others. I set up the computer at my wedding, so that we could beam you in.

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It’s like being told to eat your vegetables first with the assumption that you will get the desert if you endure through the unpleasant veggies, and then being told that there is no desert. The vegetables are good for your health and development, but you don't get the part of the meal you most enjoy.

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After the party, the movie seemed underwhelming. At the party they could talk so easily, socialize and interact. And they were still all there in the movie, but everything they could do at the party became so much harder to do. No interesting conversations, just whispers stolen when they think it won't disturb anything. Forced to be content  with  the silent presence of friends, watching the same thing as you.

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it's like the difference between a fresh marker on a page and the same marker dried out. In one, color comes off so smoothly. Doing it's job perfectly, leaving a wet trail of vibrance behind. The other, requires more effort, more frustration. The result is never as exciting, and interest is slowly drying out.

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Virtual learning is like trying to explain your vacation to your friend. The highlights are preserved in photos that you share over and over, but it will never be the same experience as if they'd been there.

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It's like going to the zoo and seeing the wild right at your fingertips.. but it's not the same. You see the lion roar, but you will never see the true roar of the mother lion defending her cubs in her natural habitat. These animals don't belong here, with the cages and the bars that separate them.

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They remembered their previous lives like swimming in the ocean. A  deep salty expanse before them. The sand beneath their feet. The gulls above their heads. Now they were in the digital pool. Training for when they could return. The four walls, the lifeguard. Some skills may be transferable, but the construction is off. Still swimming, but different in almost every way.

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Distance learning is comparable to when you go to the store to get something, but they only carry the off-brand version.

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You're in an old 1980's pickup truck driving to the beach, you don't have the Ferrari you had last year, but at least you can still drive. It takes you much longer to get the beach, but eventually you will get there.

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You go from playing a card game you are familiar with to a new one, maybe a new type of poker or president. In this new game you don't know the rules and you constantly have to ask what you should be doing. Eventually maybe you will understand this new game and have fun playing it but for now it's just confusing.

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It's like being a fan of a sports team that won the championship the year before but now isn't very good. You feel obligated to support them and watch their games, but you can't help thinking about how good it was the year before. You also watch every game to see if they will get better, but are disappointed each time because they don't. You keep holding out for the day they start to improve but it doesn't seem to be coming.

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In person learning can be compared to a mime. Pretending to be trapped in a box, making everyone laugh, and having connections with the people that the mime meets. Sadly, online learning can be compared to if that mime was actually in the box. Isolated, and everyone around the mime is pretty worried about the mime’s well being.

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Like watching a basketball game in person vs on TV, the content is the same, the views might be even better, but you're missing one of the most tangible yet inexplicable aspects of the experience- the 3 dimensional connection to your subject.

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Akin to the way one might feel moving from you old childhood house and old way of being, this time has thrown every student, every person, out from their realm of comforts into the sheer unknown. You leave your friends you once knew, the bliss that you have come to love and have only known, and even your room in world you have come to feel a connection with. And you do so without the time to say goodbye or truly be grateful for all what you have. You move with only a now distant memory of that place, that world now so distant, to a place so different.

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Distance learning is like moving to a new place, like a state or country. Just once you've become familiar with everything and everyone, you are suddenly forced to adapt to a whole new environment, all by yourself. Familiarity is lost and confusion sets in.

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Distance learning is to running on your treadmill as irl learning is to running in the forest. 

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Its like trying to have a long phone conversation over email

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Its like trying to have a long phone conversation over email

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Distance learning is just like ice cream. At first, we were excited to do school from home, and saw it as a nice break. That's when you first get ice cream, before it melts. However, distance learning started to lose its appeal after a bit, just like how ice cream starts to melt and become more of a hassle after some time.

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Normal school is like running on dry land; most people know what it's like and it feels normal. With hard work, you can get better pretty quickly. Online school is like running in water; it's much harder to move forward and it adds a lot of extra challenge to what would otherwise be a fairly simple task.

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It is like the last 5 min of a sports game that is tied in points between 2 equally skilled teams. A constant effort that could easily be messed up by one small slip up.

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Distance learning is like biking on a Peloton. You can pretend you're biking on a trail, or in a city, or on a mountain, but it's just a virtual reality screen. It's nothing like the real thing.

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The teacher could tell the feeling he received from distance learning was different, but it was hard to put his finger on exactly how. In some ways, it reminded him of the difference between biting into a fresh crisp piece of watermelon, and the artificial sensation captured by a watermelon jolly rancher. It was still sweet (after all, watermelon jolly ranchers are objectively and without argumentation the best kind of jolly rancher) but there was still some indescribable quality missing. It was like trying to capture the sensation of something deeply organic inside a chemical representation of that thing. The translation was problematic. Imperfect.

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Every student is in their own car, and everyone is driving on a highway. It's very difficult to try and talk to others through your window while driving, let alone try to stay next to the cars you're supposed to be with. If you get distracted, or try to call your friends, you might end up in an accident. Some people are so far behind that they become forgotten, and it feels like it's impossible to catch up. Some people might not even have a car to be able to join everyone else on the road.

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With every bite you figure out whats in it or what its made of.

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As you begin to ease your eyes upon the screen, it's almost like the sensation you get from living inside a beer bottle. Intoxicating, cold, musty,  and yellow. Life continues in this beer bottle and you can't help but scream as your life existence is drained as it is sapped drop from drop.

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Distance learning is like a new born child. Just when you think you got it down and know whats going to happen, everything changes and then you got to adapt. You then realize you can only go with the flow and adapt around it.

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its like you're not completely blind but everything is super blurry and every time you wipe the raindrops off, more come on so you eventually give up and either take them off or just wear rain covered glasses. its super frustrating and hard to navigate. you just want to see clearly and know whats happening at all times.

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When students are in the actual classroom, they are experiencing learning through a mirror right in front of them. When distance learning happens, it is like there is a mirror behind them too, making the back mirror reflect off the front over and over again.  You can still see yourself, but your vision is impacted by all of the layers reflecting back and forth. It can get confusing and frustrating because it is so different than the one mirror you are used to seeing.

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It's like you've been playing a video game and every level gets harder but you also get better, then when you finally hit level 100, the server crashes and all of a sudden you're playing flappy bird and confused on how you got there and struggling to get all your progress back from the old game