Bubbles of learning

Well a hugely testing and fascinating time for us all at the moment and whatever is happening in your bubble I hope you are safe, well and weathering the storm. The pandemic has turned upside down so much that was normal and to be perfectly honest I have very much struggled over the last week especially.

Work starts for me tomorrow and presents a whole different set of challenges. Missing the social links in the classroom is something that I will struggle with. Teachers have been amazing in developing and adapting to the new norms, I have been happily leading my friends and whānau in setting up Zoom meetings and other mediums to meet. We had hilarious times with my whānau across the globe in an Easter Zoom across 5 countries with cousins. The myriad of languages made it difficult for everyone to follow. To me though Zoom, Meet and skype are fantastic tools and certainly have been used to teach well. What are the most important 2 things in the classroom though, well for me the students and the learning. I will be using Zoom not for direct teaching but hopefully more for a social space, I want it to be playful and fun as that is probably more important for (certainly my Junior) students than the curriculum. Through the week there will be tasks assigned and 2 meets a week to check in. Outside of that of course I am available through email and the google classroom. As we look towards this challenge think about the great distance educators of our past.

Extra curricular activities: I have been lucky this year as I have been selected for the Core Education Vince Ham E-fellowship. My action research has been focused on E-sports and gender equity. I have slowly been getting this into order with a small group of interested students. This has now suddenly moved up on the list of priorities though the battle around screen time rages on in the Household the escapism of gaming/playing competitively with friends is more and more needed. My students have set up a Discord server and around 23 people have logged on to it. The students are far more familiar with Discord than me (It is awesome by the way but a little overwhelming for noobs). Am still trying to get the group organised for a nationwide competition.

So looking forward to an interesting and exciting term who knows where it will lead and how we might come out the other side of this. Either way wishing you all the best.

Kia kaha

Duncan