In our district, we have been in person all year with our students. It has been nice that we have not had to have learning happen through virtual meetings all day, every day. I have however appreciated the fact that this resource is still available in the back pocket for when it makes sense.
There have been a couple of times now where I have needed to meet with a particular graduation class. Rather than having over 300 students all pile into the theater, ran a Google Meet session. Advisors of that particular class were sent a Google Meet link to join and projected me into their classrooms. Students then had the ability to follow along and complete the task at hand that I was demonstrating. What also helped was the fact that these students were spaced out throughout the school building. So, having 300 students complete tasks at the same time throughout the building is more successful than having 300 students in the theater accessing one access point.
I also appreciated the fact that I was able to record the sessions as well. Advisors were told ahead of time to mute their camera and their microphone. Once the session was completed, I was able to follow up with the link to the recording that could be shown again at a later time. This way if an advisor was absent and a group of students missed the message, that advisor could play it at a time that made sense for them.
While many of us want to forget some of the experiences that we were faced with the past few years, it is important to recognize that some of the tools that we used then can still be used in creative ways moving forward. This is one of them.
If you have any questions about this idea or process, you know how to find me.
And that is my Spiel…
Craig M Sheil 