Author: Erviola Konomi

The word is confronted now with Covid-19, the school are closed, I hope for your safety and well-being. In this difficult situation, we have tried to stay close to students through online learning.

The EdTechX Global Report in Addressing the Likely Impact of COVID-19 on use of Technology in Education and Training: “The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting containment measures on Education and Training has been enormous. 1.7 bn learners, or 90%, are estimated to be currently learning from home”

According to the Ministry of Education in Albania “… a very significant number of students, parents and teachers are engaged in online lessons: 96.8% of students, 95.3% of parents and 98.7% of teachers”

The situation of pandemic was unexpected and I, like many teachers, found ourselves unprepared and untrained for distance learning.

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In the middle of this perspective, teachers offered a way of solutions for students in their schools, simultaneously continuing self-training for professional development and work, for online teaching. Many companies offered their platforms for free during the pandemic, resulting in a global online learning experiment like never before.

Increasing online education is a long-term trend, with Covid-19 pandemic, acting as a catalyst and beyond. But the teachers work and efforts of several years of professional development in the Scientix and eTwinning networks of the European Schoolnet Academy with different online and onsite courses and training, gave its results after the knowledge gained was implemented.

As a teacher of Scientix and Ambassador of eTwinning, I began to use different methods, techniques and tools during distance learning. In order to make online lessons as attractive and engaging as possible, for those students who had the opportunity to attend online classes, I used some teaching tools, games and quizzes for online lessons. Virtual classes were held in Google Classroom and I used different tools in my teaching like GeoGebra, Phet, Padlet, Google Forms, Quiz or games on Quizizz. Through online learning, we helped students improve their digital skills and increase their self-confidence.

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Short description of my work: Google Classroom – I tried to help update the knowledge of all students through my instructions, offering help for everyone. After I created the virtual classes in the Google Classroom, I created tutorial videos for my colleagues and students, how to using the Google Classroom

platform.

For students: VIDEO TUTORIAL

For teachers: VIDEO TUTORIAL

Many of the methods and tools that we used were new to both teachers and students, by developing digital competencies in students and fostering critical thinking. VIDEO.

Using the Google Classroom platform was a good collaborative and interactive opportunity for students and teachers. Before completing the lesson with the students, first of all, I entered the Google Classroom class that I had a lesson. Below are some instructions on how to do it:

• Click on the Classwork tab. In the Materials section, create the subject material by uploading it as a file from mobile or PC. I made a summary of all the information for my teaching. Distribute it to the whole class.
• In the “questions” section, I created a question for all students in the class on the knowledge I required the student to answer, or example, “What kind of features of a statistical distribution do we have?” Or “Is the first quartile found with the formula [3 (n + 1) / 4]?
• In the Assessment section, “forms” create a short query in the form of a mini-test for quick assessment of students after classes.
• In the “Assignment” section, put the tasks that the student will submit after attending the online lesson. After mastering the online lesson, then he/she will be evaluated for the acquired knowledge in Google Forms.

To make the Test in Quizizz

• Make an organization of all these rubrics by grouping them in a single material, which I have named e.g. Lesson time: “Repetition on Statistics”. So that the student can easily orient himself to what you will do during this lesson. All these materials and tasks appear on the Stream page. There I also shared a video I took from YouTube that I published earlier on the chapter’s knowledge summary.

In this difficult situation with Covid-19, our students used online materials that we created in different programs. In my classes, I teach maths and ICT and I created my lesson using GeoGebra. To write the text for exp. formulas in LaTex we must write the code that computer needs. Video 1 , Video2.

My lesson in GeoGebra:

Exercise 1, Exercise 2, Exercise 3, Exercise 4, Exercise 5 in GeoGebra.

And, as students around the globe moved to remote learning, we saw PhET sims play a critical role in maintaining quality STEM education. I use this program PhET to explain to my students different lessons in Google classroom.

My online lessons as Book

I created a Padlet as assessment that students can put their homework for Scratch lessons. Competition with my students for their work in the Scratch program “Made with dreams”. How can we help others in this situation? What our students want to do in this situation caused by Covid-19? Video.

As digital dossier we use Padlet : Stay at home, stay healthy!

I used the program Powtoon to create my lesson.

Zoom – A professional program for remote meetings. This system offers teachers and students the opportunity to hold interactive lectures up to 100
students at the same time. We used it to connect with each other, to ask questions and provide answers.

Even during this time, projects in eTwinning have continued regularly. The beautiful and creative works of the peers of our students, from all over Europe, have been numerous, coming as the aid to our students as well.

Now I want that my online lessons to be like this, big audience but everyone safely in his/her home 🙂

After Covid-19, the path to recovery can have multiple periods of social constraint creating an amazing return, different in time and geographically. The immediate response to education has been to move from the blackboard to online learning, mainly through video, teaching digitally, but the second stage is the use of digital tools to increase engagement and efficiency among students.

The science of learning is moving education beyond simple digitalization to digital transformation. The other focus is on reconfiguring and optimizing opportunities for teachers. To learn from experiences and improve the effectiveness of online learning.

During online learning, the teachers should encourage information processing by students, developing critical thinking through analysis, evaluation, judgment, synthesis, creating, problem-solving, identifying cause and effect, distinguishing facts and opinions.

After all “ a teacher remain student, all his/her life”

“I know that I know nothing” – Socrates