Snow day’s virtual classroom: lessons at home

 

 

 

                       

 

 

 

New Jersey’s Pascack Valley Regional High School District on Thursday pioneered the virtual snow day in New Jersey, but similar experiments are under way across the ｃountry as this year’s extreme winter weather wreaks havoc with traditional school schedules.

Momentum is building in places like Ohio, where some schools have had to cancel classes for as many as 14 days only midway through winter. The Pascack Valley plan to have snow-bound students do schoolwork at home on their school-issued laptops traveled the nation on websites and newswires and generated discussion as an idea whose time has come. 

Freshman Isabella Tolomeo working on an English assignment in her kitchen Thursday as her dad, Jim, watched.

The regional district, which includes Pascack Valley and Pascack Hills high schools, took a leap of faith in piloting the virtual snow day, hoping the NJ Education Department will approve it as a substitute for one of the 180 school days mandated by law.  [In this New Jersey district, each of the 2,000 students in the district’s two high schools, as well as their teachers, have laptops that cost $1 million in total and are replaced every two years. Few students do not have a Wi-Fi Internet connection at home, according to the NY Times.

“Our regulations on school attendance were created before the PC was created and our laws were created before virtual learning. However, we do support innovation,” said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the NJ state Department of Education, which is going to assess whether the virtual coursework was as rigorous as a day of actual school.

Erik Gundersen, superintendent of the district, said teachers used a wide range of tactics to connect with students via their laptops – from social networking to live video chatting to discussion boards.  He said he viewed the day as a “great success,” but that a true assessment will be based on data about student learning that will be sent to the state.

The 1,200-student school also got involved on a special Twitter feed for the day. Superintendent Gundersen said the Twitter feed showed an “honest perspective” of students’ reactions to the day.

Gundersen said he already has heard from some other districts that might experiment with virtual snow days. He added that while his district has the luxury of being able to offer laptops to all its students, there might be other ways to get around that hurdle.  “We have some creative individuals [in educational leadership] who are going to be able to figure out how to engage students from home with devices they have at home already,” Gundersen said.

New Milford NJ Superintendent Mike Polizzi said his district would most likely consider a BYOD – bring your own device – route in adopting more virtual learning.

Chicago is experimenting with virtual snow days on a limited basis. And in New Hampshire and Ohio, state legislatures and school boards have already made changes to allow for virtual snow days. The programs there are called “Blizzard Bags” because the material to be covered can also be printed out and sent home in a bag for students without access to computers or the Internet.

[In New York State, where no district can substitute a virtual day for a snow day, Dennis Tompkins, a spokesman for the state’s Education Department, noted that not all students have computers or Internet access. And for students to truly keep up, he said, “a thoughtful plan aligned with the curriculum” would need to be developed before a storm struck.

As the winter storm season has gotten worse this year, the number of districts in Ohio that have applied to participate has jumped to nearly 300, said John Charlton, spokesman for the Ohio state Education Department. That number represents about 20 percent of districts in the state and is only expected to increase, he said.

But in New Hampshire, districts are proceeding more cautiously. Todd DeMitchell, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, said issues beyond the technology need to be addressed such as teacher training. “Teaching online is a different skill set,” said DeMitchell. “To be able to translate success in the classroom online doesn’t automatically happen. And what happens when the power goes out?”

And while virtual snow days may work in high school, it may be more of a challenge in lower grades.

Back in North Jersey, Alexa Hirschberg of Woodcliff Lake, a student at Pascack Hills High School, spent her morning Thursday figuring out an honors physics problem. For gym, she needed to measure her heart rate after shoveling snow. Then it was back to the laptop.  “It may be ending up more work than school – I’m not sure but it’s a lot of work so far,” said her mom, Beth Hirschberg.

Isabella Tolomeo, a 14-year-old freshman, said she’d be happy if the virtual day meant fewer days [at school]. “It works well because now we don’t have to stay in school longer or have to take off from our spring break,” Isabella said. She, too, thought the virtual day may have contained more work than a usual school day.

Her dad said he noticed there was a bit of initial confusion over the way the day would go, but it all seemed to work out. “I think that they may have something here, I really do,” said Jim Tolomeo.

 

 

 

 

Article Source:https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/daily-news-article/snow-days-virtual-classroom-lessons-at-home/

ImageSource: " wp-image-24029" style="border-width: 1px; border-color: black; border-style: solid;" alt="virtualsnow" src="http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/virtualsnow-300x199.jpg" width="270" height="179

 

 

 

 

VOCABULARY WORDS

1.Pioneer/verb: develop or be the first to use or apply (a new method, area of knowledge, or activity).

2.Experiment/noun: a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.

3.Wreak/verb: wreak; cause (a large amount of damage or harm).

4.Momentum/noun: PHYSICS

the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity.

5.Substitute/noun: a person or thing acting or serving in place of another.

6.Regulation/noun: a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority.

7.Innovation/noun: the action or process of innovating.

8.Rigorous/adjective: extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate.

9.Superintendent/noun: a person who manages or superintends an organization or activity.

10.Tactic/noun: an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end.

11.Assessment/noun: the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something.

12.Rigorous/adjective: extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate.

 

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

1. What did a regional school district in New Jersey do last week?

2. Why did they do it? Be specific.

3. What fact about the high schools in that district make it do-able?

4. a) What solutions have been proposed for school districts where                students aren’t issued school  laptops/tablets?
    b) Do you think these are realistic solutions? Would they adequately           solve the problem?

5. In what other city/states have work at home days been approved by school board or legislature?

6. List the other challenges mentioned in the article that might come up when conducting “virtual school” days.

7. What factor(s) not mentioned in the article could also be a problem of virtual school from home?

8. a) What do you think of this solution to the problem of using up more snow days than your school has   scheduled?
    b) If a teacher does not like the idea of a virtual snow day, do you think he/she would feel comfortable   saying it at a board meeting? Explain your answer.