Let Me Know If You’re Teaching K-12 Students Online Because Of COVID-19 & Would Like To Write A Guest Post About Your Experiences

Check out my multi-part Ed Week series with teachers around the world sharing their experiences!

UPDATED: Here’s The Revised Online Teaching Plan I Hope To Implement Next Week

Here’s What I’m Trying Out In My Daily Thirty-Minute Live Online Newcomers Class

ENGLISH CENTRAL, WHICH I THINK IS THE MOST ENGAGING ONLINE SITE FOR ELLS, LETS TEACHERS & STUDENTS USE IT FOR FREE DURING CRISIS

Check out All Classroom Q&A Posts on the Coronavirus Crisis 

Video: Here’s An Example Of My Daily Online Lesson For ELL Newcomers

THE BEST IDEAS FOR ONLINE ACTIVITIES TO USE WHEN TEACHING ELLS REMOTELY – SHARE MORE!

We Might Have Gotten Remote Learning Wrong. We Can Still Fix This School Year

Four questions – and answers – about teaching English online

VIDEO OF STUDENT PANEL TALKING ABOUT THEIR DISTANCE LEARNING EXPERIENCES IN THE SPRING

I’ve been sharing a lot of resources over the past week, and will continue to do so.

However, it can be overwhelming – to me and to readers.

This is a more narrow and focused list – just the resources that I think are the most useful – the “best of the best.” I don’t share anything that I think is not helpful and carefully curate anything I post on the blog, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

That’s why I have a lengthy series of “All-Time Best” lists on different topics, and you can find them all here.

I’ll continue to add to my other lists, and will slowly add to this one.

To access all the resources I’ve shared, go to:

The Best Video Tutorials On Teaching Remotely – Please Suggest More!

The Best Advice On Teaching K-12 Online (If We Have To Because Of The Coronavirus) – Please Make More Suggestions!

The Best Research Related To Closing Schools Because Of The Coronavirus

THE FOUR BEST TOOLS FOR TAKING EXISTING VIDEOS & MAKING THEM INTERACTIVE FOR ONLINE LEARNING

The Best Summaries Of Research About Online Instruction

Great Resources For Creating & Going On Virtual Field Trips

A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Learning About Google Classroom

“News-O-Matic” Is Definitely A Site I Would Consider Using With Students Right Now

Ten Million People Applied For Unemployment In Two Weeks – We Better Keep That In Mind When We’re Teaching

These Are Great! Six Free Tools Teachers & Students Can Use To Learn English, Spanish & Other Languages During The Coronavirus Crisis

THE BEST VIDEOS IN SPANISH TO HELP PARENTS & STUDENTS ACCESS TECH IN REMOTE LEARNING

SIX POTENTIAL MODELS FOR SCHOOL SCHEDULES DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL

 

Here are my choices for the “best of the best”:

I’ve got to start with four of my previous posts: the first is one of the “Best” lists I just shared: THE FOUR BEST TOOLS FOR TAKING EXISTING VIDEOS & MAKING THEM INTERACTIVE FOR ONLINE LEARNING.

Another is HERE’S MY ONLINE TEACHING PLAN IF OUR SCHOOL CLOSES DOWN BECAUSE OF THE CORONAVIRUS, which I’ve updated since it was first published.

If You Are Teaching Theory Of Knowledge & Have To Go Online, Here Is The IDEAL Project For Your Students!

Finally, “Learning Packets” For Students During School Closures.

Brainpop IS Offering Free Individual Accounts For Students – What A Gift For ELLs & Others

You’ll find nothing better  than a guide published by Edublogs called RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ONLINE DUE TO SCHOOL CLOSURES:

Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely is from Richard Byrne.

Preparing to Take School Online? Here Are 10 Tips to Make It Work. is from Ed Surge.

The Educator Temporary School Closure for Online Learning Facebook Group is a gold mine!

Ideas for adapting group lessons to working on Zoom is by Sandy Millin.

5 Structures for Virtual School is from the great Tan Huynh.

#RemoteLearning Ideas with and for Younger Learners is from Langwitches.

MindShift  published a great resource: Resources For Teaching and Learning During This Period of Social Distancing

Remote Teaching and Learning Guidance from The English College in Prague looks very helpful.

Estonia is renowned for its schooling and its online infrastructure. They’ve now made all their online tools available for free to schools around the world, and several of them look pretty exceptional.

I’m not a math or science teacher, but it’s always seemed to me that using Legends of Learning would be the kind of way I’d want to learn both. They’ve just made their premium features free to teachers and students during closures. Read my past posts about the site here.

There are a few very good collections of tools providing free access to teachers and students affected by school closures.

Here’s a list using Wakelet.

This is a crowdsourced Google Doc link

This list may be the best list of free tools.

 

The Blog de Cristina shared an incredibly easy video conferencing tool (our school staff has actually be using it to meet every day this week) called 8 X 8. Read her post about it. If you don’t need Zoom’s breakout rooms, 8 X 8 is the way to go. I’m also adding it to The Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration.

Webinar Recording – Three Things We Can Do To Quickly Transition to Teaching Online is from Richard Byrne’s blog.

I’m a BIG fan of Quizizz, and they have published The Quizizz Guide to Distance Learning.

Going Online: Nurturing Learning & Community During a Pandemic is from Ethical ELA.

MIT has created Full Steam Ahead, which shares some great lesson plans for students of all grades.

Thanks to Elizabeth Villanueva, I learned about this very useful Google Doc sharing resources to support immigrant students and their families.

14 Tips For Helping Students With Limited Internet Have Distance Learning is from MindShift.

This video shares a cool idea – basically, how to turn your phone in a document camera when you’re on a video conference:

Google has unveiled a “Teach From Home” site that looks very, very useful.

Learning Keeps Going is a site that appears to be sponsored by multiple education organizations, and it, too, looks like it could be invaluable.

A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus is from Teaching Tolerance.

GUIDANCE ON CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE-SUSTAINING REMOTE EDUCATION is from NYU.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Online Classroom is from Learn Magazine.

Resources to Support Special Populations During COVID-19 is from Bellwether Education Partners.

I was a guest on KQED Public Radio: California Teachers, Students Struggle with Distance Learning

In theory, you should be able to click the link on this tweet and get past the San Francisco Chronicle paywall. If not, click here:

Motivating distant learners: schools under coronavirus is by Harry Fletcher-Wood and is very good. I’m also adding it to Best Posts On “Motivating” Students.

Learn At Home is a very nice-looking site from the Utah Education Network.

I’ve written a lot about CommonLit, and it’s on several “Best” lists. They’ve now released some fairly decent one-to-two week units for various grade levels, and are creating more. If you are an English teacher and are looking for some reasonably engaging off-the-shelf curriculum, I’d encourage you to take a look at them.

EDUCATING ALL LEARNERS DURING THE COVID-19 DISASTER is a new site to support special educators and learners.

ASCD Educational Leadership has just published a great open-access issue on distance learning.

12 Ideas for Writing Through the Pandemic With The New York Times is from The NY Times Learning Network, and is very good.

At Home with PZ are Project Zero thinking strategies specifically designed for use at home. I’ve written about Project Zero in the past at Project Zero’s “Thinking Routines Tool” Is An Excellent Resource.

THIS IS THE BEST PIECE OF PANDEMIC TEACHING ADVICE THAT I’VE HEARD….

PBLWorks’ new PBL For Remote Learning looks great.

Summative Assessment in Distance Learning is from Edutopia. It points out that performance tasks make a lot of sense in this situation. I can testify to that – many of my students prepared oral presentations (which many did with a partner), and it worked very well – especially for engagement! I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Performance Assessment.

How Teachers Want Emergency Distance Learning Improved is a new Edutopia article featuring several teachers (including me) from around the country talking about their remote teaching experiences.