Why are teachers not teaching live lessons online

[Shouldistayorshouldimove]

This is not a teacher bashing thread.

Talking online with another mum in my son’s class today, both ourDCs are in p1 (Scotland). She is outraged that teachers next term will be posting work online rather than actually teaching using Zoom etc. Her argument is that universities are doing it so why aren’t teachers? And how is she supposed to work from home and educate her children?

Personally I don’t think teaching a bunch of 5 year olds a live lesson using Zoom is going to be all that effective and would probably require quite a lot of supervision anyway. AIBU to think that tasks posted online are quite sufficient given the circumstances? So as not to drip feed, I am also working from home with 2DCs.

@Clavinova all your posts have achieved is to highlight how underfunded state schools are compared to privately funded academies.

All schools and teachers I'm sure would love to provide internet and tech devices for their pupils if budgets allowed for it. But more often then not they do not. And the area the school is located in also has a huge impact as it's not as simple as just providing a laptop/tablet if your in a rural area or a area with large amounts of poverty, a device isnt going to be any use without the internet connection to access resources. And internet speed is seriously tanking during the lockdown in the UK.
I pay for top end fibre due to both me and DH requiring strong internet connection, but I've noticed even our connection is tanking at times, and know other friends who are attending online live university lectures who have found it almost impossible (even if they have access to technology to do so, and not everyone does) due to really patchy and dropping internet connections from potentially either side.

What about teachers or pupils who live in rural areas with weak internet connection? How would you propose that staff member does a live class if there internet freezes or drops out every ten minutes? Would you expect a student who lives rurally to be disadvantaged and unable to partake in live lessons due to having a poor internet connection? - I'm from rural areas originally and I can guarantee that regardless how much you pay for internet there is only so much that can be done to speed it up or provide a strong connection due to old infrastructure and usually a complete lack of fibre connections.

I've been following the thread since it started, hadn't realised my first reply was to you.
Ah well, the point still stands regarding endless assertions, telling people you know more about their job than they do, copying and pasting individual examples that don't prove anything.

Hercwasonaroll wasn't that the school that had funding difficulties in other areas and poor results, spent a fortune on edtech and there was no positive outcome? I remember reading about a Glasgow school in the news.

How about you acknowledge that schools are all different, with different needs, different budgets and no one solution will suit them all
This a million times over.
It's too complex a situation to start arguing for one size fits all, and all this "school A does ... So why don't you" feels distinctly like when parents/students say "but Mr Blogs replies on the homework platform at 11pm the night before homework is due so why can't you? / My child tried to do their homework but Mrs Smith couldn't be bothered to help my child (when they left it til 11pm the night before to ask)"

Schools in Glasgow are in the process of rolling out 54,000 Apple iPads to teachers and pupils (a 2 year pre-coronavirus project).The biggest Apple project of its kind in Europe.

I’ve refused Apple in my school. They are far too expensive for schools and I can’t even teach everything I want to using their products. I mean, they were charging schools (last term so very recently) £500 per keyboard!!! No one could possibly advocate this as a good use of school funding-not even Clav!
Besides, it’s been the over-use of devices such as iPads that has contributed to the huge decline in digital skills amongst current pupils and has been a big headache during this pandemic.

Besides, it’s been the over-use of devices such as iPads that has contributed to the huge decline in digital skills amongst current pupils and has been a big headache during this pandemic.

I totally agree, students are device literate but totally lacking in ICT skills. Struggling to open files, use emails, save documents etc.

A real eyeopener.

That's why it is so important for everyone to acknowledge that this is new territory and no easy solutions before sticking the boot in.

Totally agree @LolaSmiles . We are all learning and that takes times and energy. I know I have made mistakes and am having to learn how to use new software - I have never used microsoft teams for example. When Mners are berating teachers for doing so little they need to remember that many of us are caring for our children at home, in a stressful period of uncertainty, whilst trying to upskill at speed and teach other children. We are not alone in that challenge of course but it feels like we are being singled out unfairly.

Apple devices are so frustrating.

No file structure
No usb
No cable to transfer files easily
Unclear where things saved
No proper keyboard

Ugh.

I agree, I use my ipad at work for emailing, reading documents and Idoceo but anything else is done on my notebook.

Tw1nset
Thankfully there's loads of other posters on here who are supportive parents and are all helping each other, listening to posters who are teachers and there's a wonderful sense that this is all new for everyone.

It's a bit like real life, most people are very reasonable with a loud minority who seek to stick the boot in, spread misinformation, and whip up anger.

I would suspect that this is the same as usual-

Supportive parents will continue to be supportive and their kids will get to grips with the new way quicker.

Unsupportive parents will continue to be unsupportive and their kids won’t. It always amazes me that parents don’t realise that everything they say at home about teaching and teachers gets parroted back to us at some point. Thus easily identify why little Ollie never does his homework ‘your teacher can’t make you’ or won’t behave in class ‘ my dad says I don’t have to do what you say’.

Happy Easter all. Let’s all keep pulling together to help each other. I think on my students everyday and would do anything to help them. But I’m not keen on having screenshots of me trying to discipline my toddler while teaching being passed around on snapchat. Everyone has their line.

It's a bit like real life, most people are very reasonable with a loud minority who seek to stick the boot in, spread misinformation, and whip up anger.

I think I'm very reasonable.

Just spotted this:

"Southwark’s top councillor has slammed a prominent lawyer threatening to sue the council over education provision for poor pupils during the coronavirus crisis."

"QC Jolyon Maugham told the Guardian newspaper this week that his Good Law project intended to take legal action against local authorities including Southwark on behalf of parents."

"He said that local authorities had a duty to ensure disadvantaged children had access to laptops and internet connections for online learning."

"The shift to online education after the schools closure last month has forced some schools in the borough to fund raise to be able to provide their pupils with access to materials."

"Among them are Compass School, in Bermondsey, which has launched an appeal for businesses to supply their students with laptops to allow access to lessons."

"The SE16 school says the majority of its students are on free school meals and may lack IT equipment at home.The appeal has reached more than £11,000 at the time of writing."

www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/southwark-council-row-jolyon-maugham/

Clavinova all your posts have achieved is to highlight how underfunded state schools are compared to privately funded academies.

The schools I linked to are state schools.

threatening to sue the council

wouldn’t the money spent suing the council be more usefully spent buying laptops for disadvantaged kids, if that’s his concern?

Perhaps he could also, seeing as he has the time, sue the DfE for failing to sort out FSM vouchers for disadvantaged kids. Getting them fed is surely the priority over getting them broadband.

wouldn’t the money spent suing the council be more usefully spent buying laptops for disadvantaged kids, if that’s his concern?

Yes, probably. I've never liked Jolyon Maugham.

The thing is Clav this backs up the original answer to the OP's topic. They are not teaching online as pupils don't all have access to provide equal education to all. Linking to the thread about Southwark just backs this up. Not every household has access - so something that all pupils can access should be provided. All the lessons I set have to also be adapted for the pupils not online and these are collated once a week and delivered to the pupils.

They are not teaching online as pupils don't all have access to provide equal education to all

I doubt that a child sat at home with a paper pack of worksheets and a parent with few qualifications is having an equal education at all in lock down. Better to lend them an iPad/laptop.

There are none to lend!!

How are you not understanding this?

There are none to lend!!

That depends on how many children in the school need them and what resources the school has. I've just been looking at a primary school with one iPad for every 2 children - obviously they could probably manage it.

In most cases there are none to lend. Plus what happens if they get broken/sold etc while out on loan? Schools can't afford to replace them and nor can parents.

Education provision is never equal no matter how hard you try. Sadly home learning means the gap between the haves and the have nots will widen further. Consider yourself incredibly lucky you are in the have group Clav.

We had to post paper and pens out to some of our families as they didn’t even have that at home never mind a laptop!

My school ipad is an ipad 2. It stopped updating at iOS 9.3.5 (current iOS is 13) and therefore you can’t download quite a few apps onto it.

It is, and I’m putting this mildly, totally shit. I think it would die if I mentioned Zoom to it.

@noblegiraffe snap! Although my “school iPad” is no longer a school iPad as they recalled them all and made us a phone and tablet free site and offered us the chance to buy them for £50.

Same, Myfriend! From the great Ipad fad of 2010. Everyone else handed theirs back and these now form the ‘class set’ (12) of ipads that is my department’s IT provision.

I've just been looking at a primary school with one iPad for every 2 children - obviously they could probably manage it.
Obviously not every school has a stash of tablets.

It's always the same:

Clavi: I think X and know more than anyone actually teaching

Multiple posters (including lots of teachers): Actually the issue is more complex, you're not considering all of these factors / you're misinformed on X and here's why

Clavi: but here's a school I found online that does what I think so I must be right / if school A that I've found does X then why aren't other schools (because obviously X is right because I say so)

Multiple posters: You're still missing all these other complex factors and the fact that schools are all different.

Clavi: But see, see, here's another school that I've found that does X.

Ok so what at my school could we give to the disadvantaged kids. The aforementioned set of Ipad 2s. There might be some laptops in the English department. Our computing department has some really crappy desktops - if you don’t mind the missing keys on the keyboards and the ever elusive mice. But then it might be a bit difficult to deliver and set those up. Hmm.

Oh but Clav’s heard of a primary school with loads of ipads (probably funded by the PTA....).