Has COVID-19 wrecked the Snow days?

[Lostngone]

With all this virtual classroom and remote learning that is being implemented does that mean after we get COVID-19 sorted out that any time a school or district is closed for either weather events or other things that the children won’t get the day off?

 

[Eric]

It's a good question actually, hadn't thought of that. I know when they started closing early they said something about exhausting snow days as a part of it, in some areas anyway.

 

[Alli]

With all this virtual classroom and remote learning that is being implemented does that mean after we get COVID-19 sorted out that any time a school or district is closed for either weather events or other things that the children won’t get the day off?

When I started designing online learning it was supposed to be for COVID and beyond. It will definitely replace snow/hurricane days. No more weather days or even sick days. All the work can still be done or made up at home.

 

[Lostngone]

Just great... Another thing COVID-19 has wrecked!

 

[Thomas Veil]

It will definitely replace snow/hurricane days. No more weather days or even sick days.

You really think so? I would have thought (under normal conditions) it would be easier to do regular teaching with a few unscheduled days off, than to switch back and forth between in-person and online.

 

[Alli]

You really think so? I would have thought (under normal conditions) it would be easier to do regular teaching with a few unscheduled days off, than to switch back and forth between in-person and online.

The future is in blended learning. That requires a mix of face to face (F2F) and online. It’s easy to default to online for a few days or a few weeks for everyone and return to F2F when available. It’s also easy for an absent student to use the online activities to keep from being behind. I was doing that years ago. My students would come back after being out (sick or field trip) and already followed what we did in class while they were out because the entire lesson had been posted online moments after class ended.

 

[lizkat]

The future is in blended learning. That requires a mix of face to face (F2F) and online. It’s easy to default to online for a few days or a few weeks for everyone and return to F2F when available. It’s also easy for an absent student to use the online activities to keep from being behind. I was doing that years ago. My students would come back after being out (sick or field trip) and already followed what we did in class while they were out because the entire lesson had been posted online moments after class ended.

I think blended learning is ok in general but when a parent has more than one child currently in a distance learning situation it can get pretty frazzling... and that's leaving aside the issue of who minds the at-home students if the single parent or both parents work outside the home. Probably a lot of learning curves on that at the moment but even more after some kind of normalcy returns to work situations.

 

[Alli]

I think blended learning is ok in general but when a parent has more than one child currently in a distance learning situation it can get pretty frazzling... and that's leaving aside the issue of who minds the at-home students if the single parent or both parents work outside the home. Probably a lot of learning curves on that at the moment but even more after some kind of normalcy returns to work situations.

Heck, we just discovered without the kids even getting back into the classroom, that we’ll still need snow days cause when the weather goes tits up, so does the electricity and the internet.

 

[lizkat]

Heck, we just discovered without the kids even getting back into the classroom, that we’ll still need snow days cause when the weather goes tits up, so does the electricity and the internet.

Yeah here broadband deployment is still pretty sketchy in some areas, thanks to the FCC having allowed providers to call it deployed if one house is served in a given block on the map. Assorted providers like Frontier bit down on some federal incentives to finish the job but Frontier has gone bankrupt in the meantime and one can wonder what their restructuring plans will encompass in the way of service extensions. God knows they don't plan on anything like giving the government money back, right? We even joke grimly around here whenever internet service goes out that they may not have paid their upstream bill...

Service issues aside, the poverty rate is high enough here that plenty of students' homes don't have net access. So for ordinary homework even during F2F learning, the kids must rely on public library access or trips back to the school parking lot if their parents can afford the gas and time.

Most people have a cell phone plan but some are literally just for voice calls, and there are lots of areas in the mountainous terrain where there's not even any cell service. The carriers all refer to that situation as "spotty coverage" which sounds like no big deal until you realize that means there's no service for 400 square miles along a whole valley running between a couple of townships.

It's the best of all worlds when some investment banker buys a second home up here and then starts leaning on the local congress critters about the dismal state of telecommunications in the area when he tries to work remotely on weekends. At least the local EMS responders have got a few signal booster installations after issues with folk on state roads being unable to dial 911 after a crash.

 

[Alli]

The internet must be reclassified as a service, like electricity or gas. It will be a giant step towards equity.