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.

@DeeCeeCherry totally different demographic! They are far more likely to be able to afford computers etc.

Fgs no one is suggesting teaching 30 5 year olds by sodding zoom 🙄 this is pre recorded for older kids.

That is exactly what the op is about and exactly what her friend wants to happen

I’d really like it if most of the parents of the kids I teach actually looked at the work I’ve set. I can see what the parents look at and when they log on and more than 90% haven’t bothered since we closed and some haven’t looked for more than a year. Actually their kids have been responsive and I’ve had some excellent feedback from them. It’s also been nice to get some delightful emails from parents saying thanks for getting stuff organised so quickly and for letting them know when their kids haven’t been working when they’ve said they were.

@MTSwift You're right, us teachers simply CBA. Did you know that the whole pandemic was actually caused by teachers as a ploy to ensure some much needed time off? 13 weeks simply wasn't enough. Not with all those late nights working til 3.45!

Can you believe I'm still being paid?! And all I've had to do is set some work online (differentiated, as always, to my children's needs. And respond to it. And answer parent queries. And write reports. And plan interesting and engaging topics that key workers' children (age range 4-11) can complete in the 2 days a week I'm in school (7.30-6.30 to provide wraparound care too). And complete online CPD. And phone vulnerable families. And shop for vouchers for families in receipt of FSM. And do food shopping for 2 very vulnerable families. And deliver it to their homes. And update the school website. And send messages to children that are struggling with their mental health. And worry about the children that I cannot make contact with, who do not have access to WiFi and technology.

Oh, and look after my own 5YO. And 2 year old. Oh and my other 2 year old. Lazy bloody teachers.

It’s difficult enough to get adult learners (FE) to engage with online resources, I have found. As in school, 60% of my effort is expended in persuading/cajoling/coercing them into doing some work. And this is a really good learning platform that assesses them, generates an individual learning plan, teaches them and tests them, with support from me whenever they want it.
I can’t imagine how a primary teacher would do it.

@MsTSwift I did a few live lessons. 4/5 out of 25-30 students logged on. each time We were explicity told by SLT as well as some students that because there are multiple siblings or parents working from home, they were not able to access lessons in real time. So great your kids have enough resources and have a laptop each, not everyone is as lucky. I set work for every lesson or for a week to allow students to work in their own time. Lots of our students came back that they felt overwhelmed by the amount of material. You can't please everyone unfortunately.

Zoom didn't go too well in Singapore:

www.france24.com/en/20200410-singapore-teachers-drop-zoom-after-online-class-gatecrashed

I cannot imagine a whole day of Zoom... And I am am adult! Sounds horrendous actually...

We are prerecording video lessons. We are also sticking to normal timetable. So in lesson times there is the opportunity for live chat, help and screencastings to be sent to students. We also have live discussion groups for the students which as a teacher I supervise.

Students "register" to the lesson via google hangouts

It was really successful last term and I am spending the Easter holidays creating new material.

As someone whose 14 and 16 year olds are being taught via online Google Meet lessons, I do think it's possible for that age group.

5 year olds though... nah. That's ridiculous.

One of the reasons it's working here (in a fairly poor US state) is that quite a long time ago the state decided to give every teacher and student either a Mac, Chromebook or iPad.

When school went online, they gave hotspots to the students who didn't have internet at home. Also the local internet provider is giving free internet service to anyone who didn't already have it.

It was still a challenge for teachers to get used to teaching online via Google Classroom, Meet, Zoom etc. They're getting better at it but the school still gives them every third day with no lessons so they have time to prepare, mark, etc.

Have you seen what’s happened in Singapore? Or it might be Malaysia.

Hackers hacked into a lesson and filled the screen with hardcore porn. Zoom is now no longer being used

Safeguarding is there to protect students. That’s why we shouldn’t be using it. I bet all those parents sneering about safeguarding in here, would be the first to complain if it affected their child.

Yeah, we were also told to try and avoid online stuff as much as possible because not every kid has access to a computer all the time. Many have to share with various siblings.

There's no need for teachers to teach live lessons- the practicalities of being on a live chat with 30 or more children is too complicated.

They could be recording videos though and posting videos online. My DD in year 10 has had some maths demonstration lessons from her teachers on google classroom.

Forgot to mention that some students cannot attend the timetabled lessons due to no tech so we are still supporting these students with paper copies sent to them. Students who can not attend the timetables lesson due to sharing resources contact us throughout the day or evening - It has been pretty full on tbh.

MrsTSwift
Well, you should be thanking your children’s teachers for not exposing your household to Zoom’s horrendous security issues (it has no end to end encryption, is riddled with malware and I’m sure you wouldn’t want your children to have porn pop up on their screen) or have you not read the links already posted or not been reading/watching the news?

If you are so desperate for pre-recorded videos/lessons, a quick Google would get you BBC Bitesize, TED Talks and a million other resources.

Anyway, this has been done to death over the past three weeks and the OP should be ashamed of starting another one. I mean, come on, even starting with the words ‘this is not a teacher bashing thread’ and waking up MrsTSwift is just criminal!

I think you're massively overestimating how good these lessons would be. It is really, really hard to make good, engaging videos, especially without any specialist software to add decent visuals. Most teachers, perfectly good as they are in the classroom, would make terrible videos that the kids wouldn't actually watch

I am in this hell now as a university lecturer. It takes ages. The technology is fucked. The editing function is awful. I have to write scripts, record and edit. Sometimes when I have nearly finished the whole thing vanishes. Some have been recorded after I’ve had a good cry because that’s all I’ve done all day and meanwhile the students are wanting to know when their assignments will be marked. That’s my evenings. We don’t use zoom because of security concerns, but online tutorials awful because of connectivity problems and many students can’t access them anyway. In one, I have a student ‘on the spectrum’ and without visual clues they struggle and so do I because they expect a one on one when it’s a group activity, but they just can’t grasp this. It’s a nightmare.

Our school is doing lessons online from year 1 up but not reception.
You wouldn’t believe the number of parents moaning about it in the WhatsApp group. They are even sharing links for lessons provided from other sources.
My DD is 5 and there’s no way she’d sit still watching the screen for more then 5 minutes so I’m pleased they aren’t doing it but I’m definitely in the minority. Other parents have been emailing the school complaining.

I am really surprised by this attitude of the unions here. My mum teaches in the Netherlands and she uses remote teaching a lot without being worried about recordings being abused. Surely Dutch teenagers aren't that different .

She has plenty of children with problems, they get more intervention rather than it just being accepted that they are too poor/safeguarding reasons/whatever. The unions should fight for that.

We use teams/Showbie. I tend to upload the lesson to Showbie or teams then open the conference call on teams to interact with the students. Some classes are very independent and like to get on with their own work and others like to interact for the whole lesson. I keep the line open for the entire lesson and ask the students to switch off their cameras. It takes more time to plan, but good so far. I imagine it’s much more difficult with younger children and large classes.

Who would be expected to pay for every teacher to have Zoom, because the free version wouldn't be enough. Schools don't have enough money in their budgets as it is!

we were also told to try and avoid online stuff as much as possible because not every kid has access to a computer all the time

I suppose it’s different when you know each pupil has a laptop. We received an email very quickly after the announcement asking if any assistance was needed with internet etc

I am teaching live to my Y12 group. It works because it is a small group and they are mature so will happily log in, listen, use the whiteboard on Teams sensibly and actually get something out of the lesson.

We are setting weekly work for younger classes and our email addresses have been sent out so they can get in touch if they need to. Packs are being delivered to those who don't have the IT facilities to access the online work.

Live lessons wouldn't work for the younger years -problems with them logging in/shared,family computers meaning they may not have access/variable internet. Plus, in a standard class, there is a wide range of abilities and needs which when I am in the classroom I support in a variety of ways. It would not be possible to do that using teams.

For those saying private schools are doing it. They may be. However, their classes are smaller than the average state school, better access to IT equipment in the family home so they can access the lessons. Generally speaking, private schools cherry pick their pupils so there isn't the same issues with deprivation/SEND etc.

When I am not teaching my Y12s live, I am setting/checking work for an entire year group, writing new schemes of learning/resources, leading a team doing the above/answering emails from students/parents, ensuring the weekly messages for parent/staff bulletin are complete. The list goes on. I am far from idle.

FFS. Not another one of these threads.

I am.

Secondary state school. Teaching live to timetable. Have my own children at home which is fun as I’m teaching - no one cares about their safeguarding!

I am also a university lecturer and whilst the pre-recorded lessons done by the university system itself (all our lectures are video-recorded alongside the powerpoint) are pretty good quality, the stuff we are doing ourselves is really variable. I've used Zoom and Skype and sometimes it's ok, other times I've had to resort to phoning a student on a landline! And that's for one to one sessions, let alone with larger groups. You would need better connectivity both for teachers and learners for this to really work long-term

The target for us to get proper fibre-optic as a country is 2033. We don't have the connectivity for a lot of online teaching right now.

@faithinallisee Someone may correct me, but it's the fact that people can type in a random code and join your lesson live, this has happened in the US and chancers have posted inappropriate content for kids to see. Also, live teaching from your home may put you or a student at risk. We are not meant to have any footage of students (and vice versa, I would feel it unpleasant if students had lets say video footage of me) on our personal phones or computers- what prevents someone to film students/trachers from the screen and reuse that footage?