A Model For Some Distance Learning

Teachers are facing a lot of anxiety over the coming school year. Having to go back into classrooms during a pandemic is the cause of stress for one group. Dealing with distance learning and the technology involved in order to do it is the cause for another.

So when I stumbled upon an on-line lesson by writer Lynda Mullaly Hunt for teachers with classes reading her book, Shouting at the Rain, I thought, This is something that should be shared. Not only could some middle grade teachers use this in their actual classrooms, but other teachers might get some ideas for distance lessons.

Lynda has done some pretty sophisticated technical things here. But she began with a variation on a Jeopardy game, something teachers have been doing for years. Then she applied technology to it to give it more educational content and keep viewers' attention. 

What this says to me is, come up with content first. Then see what technology you can find and master (or get someone else to master for you) to make it work for distance learning. 

One of the benefits of learning a new technology is that once you've learned it, you've learned it. It's available to you, and you can use it again.