I don’t know about you, but I’m torn with my feelings about Virtual Learning. I love working from home and not having to drive anywhere; normally I have to drive between multiple buildings throughout my work day. Plus working from home means I get to sleep in a little later in the mornings because I’m just walking into my office/guest room to work. This really cuts down on my commute and I get to enjoy lunch with my wonderful husband as he is currently home all day.

Conversely, I’m finding it difficult to get my students to log on to their Zoom meetings with me and getting them to complete their Google Classroom assignments. I keep sending messages to my students and their families with little to no response on any platform thus far. I’ve even contacted their gen. ed. teachers to see if they are attending and completing work for them. The consensus has been minimal for all 5 of my students so far. This is partly due to technology issues (i.e. broken Chromebook, lack of internet access), but for some of them they just aren’t getting on to my stuff and no one at home seems to be making sure they are. This isn’t great considering we’re in the 9th week of school already and I have very little data currently for their progress reports that I need to complete next week.

If I could just find ways to get the students to either log on to my Zoom or complete their Google Classroom Assignments during the week I would feel so much better. Right now, I just feel stressed out, exhausted, and over it. I know there is only so much I can do from a computer though.

Aside from students not engaging with me, I also feel like my work load has doubled. As well as the amount of meetings I have to attend weekly. There is so much more planning and organizing that goes into virtual teaching. We can’t just dig into our normal resources and curriculum like usual. We have to find a way to convert it so students are able to engage with the materials virtually. Although for me this can be fun depending on what I’m setting up for my students to do.

Additionally, I am in Grad School right now and attending remotely as well. So I spend 12+ hours a day on my computer, which is way too much time. I definitely have to make myself takes breaks away from my computer throughout the day. I get up, walk around, stretch, and give my eyes a break from staring at my computer screen. But even with all the added computer time and stresses of teaching remotely, I still prefer it. I hate having to drive in traffic everyday between multiple buildings.

How do you feel about Virtual Learning?