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.

@faithinallisee

The issues are firstly that it can be interrupted by idiots that then broadcast whatever they want to your kids. Secondly if live and not recorded anyone can splice it together to try and make the teacher out to have said all sorts. Thirdly anything out of control could happen on either camera that is then broadcast to everyone.

I work abroad and we are teaching all our secondary aged kids live via google classroom. We have them in a maximum group size of 12 and even then it is a nightmare. You can’t see them all at once and my subject usually involves a lot of interaction, games etc which is virtually impossible. The easiest thing to do is to split them down into smaller groups with tasks to work on and then pop into each chat to join them but it is very unsatisfactory and I actually feel the independent lessons (I teach an hour per class live a week and another is assigned work) are more productive. At the same time,
I am still in school teaching a primary class (who are not out of school in this country) so it is a crazy balancing act.

Well for starters, private schools have smaller class sizes. Their work wont require as much differentiating as a state school simply because they wouldn't pass the entrance exam because of some type of SEN.
Having 30 faces on a screen isn't possible.

It's not just those in the UK who video, remix, upload and ruin lives. This is something arseholes across the globe do, regardless of age. Anyone who thinks that the WWW is a nice glittery place full of goodness has clearly been living under a rock. This is another reason why it wouldn't work. Many people are tech-illiterate. There's something like 2 million who do not have any access in the UK alone. Remember there are Mac users who use it to send simple email and post on here, such a waste.

Then there's something like over 300,000 children (cannot remember the figure could be more) who are currently homeless. The majority of these families are in one room. There might not be wifi available for free, so have to rely on mobile data and tethering. This may not be affordable because of the. single room with shared facilities is ridiculously expensive.

Back in 1999 we stayed in one room at the cost of a grand a week. It was a dump and the shared facilities unusable. I only know the figure because I was accidentally sent the full bill. I had to find £50 a week and out of work. As far as I know, this is still the case, and workers get charged an insanely high amount. There was 4 of us in the room. If it was now, we would have 2 laptops between us and even then one is work-related. How would it work?

Many households were already living in poverty.
Many schools were already struggling with their reduced budgets.
So who pays for all these devices and training needed in terms of not only using them, but also in terms of Internet Safety. Where do people find the time on top of parenting, usual household stuff, work, and over-seeing their children to do school work?

Not every portal is available on every device.
Like this place, some have extremely dubious security protection.

I won't use Google Classroom. I want to reduce the info they gather on me, not encourage it. Zoom haha, not a chance.

And thats even before the complications of getting on-line to begin with when you have no connection. Plus reading some of the batshit ideas from some, access to the net will be seen as none essential.

Imagine if the first time you went online, you were hit with guilt trips about this amazing none essential invention Although come to think of it, might not be a bad thing.

Safeguarding. My school does not allow it. We can record a lesson then post it.

I’m a secondary teacher and I really resent the implication that I was sitting on my arse doing nothing and will be doing so after the Easter holidays.
I didn’t run many live lessons partly because the take up of 6/30 was so low when I tried and because in another low ability group only 8 children out of 28 have actually looked at the work set. But I have set work for each lesson, I have given feedback on over 100 written tasks and I have responded to about 100 queries and questions. At many points I was definitely working harder than normal as I wouldn’t normally have children to look after at the same time.

A lot of households won't have a good enough computer or web connection, or any computers full stop - we have enough laptops for one each, but not two laptops for the kids that could give a good enough video and sound quality for remote lessons.

Whatever the arguments for and against the cry of "I can't teach lessons online with my own kids in the house " is a pile of shite - parents are being given short shrift on here about childcare issues and finding it difficult to sort childcare, therefore the same rule applies, if you are a key worker and cannot do your role with dc in tow then you would have to use childcare supplied for keyworkers or take unpaid leave etc etc,. Therefore it is a naff argument here against being required to provide more in depth teaching services than is being seen in some cases.

Teachers at DS’ school are reading stories/maths games/art lessons/etc.; uploading them to schools YouTube channel (password protected). It’s a great idea I think. Parents aren’t expecting CBeebies quality, but it’s a good connection for the children.

I have a 7 year old (year 3) and a 13 year old both managing lessons via a mix of online tasks, zoom lessons and google meets. Well, they were at the end of last term, and will be again the week after next.

7 year old’s school uses google classroom, and uses various aspects of this fairly often during school time anyway, so he was far more adept than me at finding his way around when his lessons moved fairly seamlessly online. The lessons weren’t always full lessons, but his normal timetable was roughly adhered to, with something set for each timetabled lesson, including art, music and sport. The tasks set were pretty realistic, I thought, and he was keen to engage with them, whilst needing a fair amount of keeping on task (but then he has ADD and ASD). I’m not sure much new content was taught (and wasn’t expecting any), but he only had 4 days of online teaching before his term ended, so no complaints. For posters saying why would a younger child engage with a teacher on a pre-recorded lesson - well, ds did. He was keen to watch the clips, loved seeing his teachers, and was desperate to get into the google meets for morning form time and end of day round up (where each child entered the meet, said hello, and then muted their input, so no unruly gaggle of 7/8 year olds - they were given time after the round up,to have free chat amongst themselves)

My 13 year old (year 8) had a full timetable as well. Another practically seamless move to online lessons. She had 2 weeks of online school before term ended, and was expected to turn up, log in on time, complete work set, and behave as she would at school. She says she probably did about 2/3 of what she would normally do when at school, which again I consider a fabulous effort from her school. She had all core subjects, languages, RE, art, music and sport. There wasn’t any food tech, or textiles, but I expect school will find a workaround for those subjects next term.

I can absolutely understand that we are in a fortunate position of being able to afford the tech necessary for this to happen, and that both (private) schools are in the luxurious position of being able to assume this tech is available (and both schools sent out a survey to find out of any pupil needed to borrow school tech for the duration, again very fortunate to be able to offer this).

I don’t understand why SOMETIMES, from SOME schools, the expectations are so low - real lowest common denominator situations. There are undoubtedly families and households who cannot support this level of learning at home. There are many more who can, and who aren’t being given the opportunity.

Zoom share your face and the contents of your videos with third parties.

I work for an online school. We only take pupils year 4 and above. Younger children don't really cope well with the technology.

My 9 yr olds teacher records some lessons and posts them online. They can't do zoom due to safeguarding and I'm glad as my older son has asd and a tendancy to scream obscenities so wouldn't be great for my younger son to have in the background. We also only have 2 laptops to 4 of us so wouldn't be possible.

Please explain why a teacher recording their lesson so kids can be taught not in real time and in term time is such a hugely unreasonable suggestion?

Because we’re not in the Victorian age anymore, that’s why. Children don’t just silently sit in rows while a teacher talks at them - that’s not how lessons work anymore. There is questioning, discussion and interaction that obviously can’t be replicated in a pre-recorded video. University lectures on the other hand do often still work under that format, which is why students can still access learning for their courses that way.

I don't think what you suggest is realistic op, but what i'd like is a 3-10 min intro video and then a worksheet for me to download an print for each lesson.

Before Easter they posted a timetable each day but I didn't understand how to teach or explain all of it and the dc didn't know what I was trying to explain, and they didn't really think of me as a teacher. But on 2 lessons the teacher posted a video of her explaining and they got it straight away and then did the task.

This is primary so I don't understand why they cant just post a 5 min intro to each session (4 max per day - maths, English, topic, phonics) then have a worksheet for me to print out/follow on with.

How will that work?

School closure is just going to widen the gap further as all the grammar schools and private schools I know of are offering all day online lessons so the state school children will fall further behind especially those with uninvolved parents.

What are the safeguarding issues exactly?

It's been explained several times on the thread that students can manipulate video footage of the teacher and then post it online.

As for the suggestion that as private schools are able to do it, state schools should too, private school pupils are far more likely to have their own access to devices. I teach 6 year olds in a deprived area and I know that for quite a few of them, the only devices in their homes are the parents' phones. We've had to provide exercise books and stationery as a lot of pupils don't even have access to pencil and paper at home. We do have an online platform which I have been setting some tasks on, as well as uploading some more "unplugged" tasks to the internet. Fewer than half my pupils have even logged on since school closed.

The post from the poster in the US upthread was interesting where the state had ensured every student and teacher had their own laptop and access to a hotspot. Do some posters here not realise how chronically underfunded UK schools are? Technology developments have really suffered, especially in smaller schools.

I teach in a small primary. Between our 200-odd pupils we have around 25 laptops (at least 10 of which are so old they are virtually obsolete) and 7 iPads. We have never used anything like Google classroom or Microsoft Teams yet suddenly all staff, pupils and parents are supposed to know how to use them for online lessons?

Perhaps if the government had been interested in funding technology in schools, we would be better placed now to provide remote learning. However, we can't even afford to replace the interactive whiteboards in my school, which are identical to the one I used in my first year of teaching 16 years ago.

I don't expect teachers to be able to manage everything new they have on and teach live 5 hours a day. That would be ridiculous, impossible, just as it's ridiculous to expect people to work from home full-time and manage childcare/homeschooling primary kids. I'm also well aware that you don't give 5 year olds lectures and that any kind in online session would need an adult in the room at the child's end.

However, we've managed to get a third of the class together on zoom at the same time so they can say hello and share some news - so it is possible. It was password protected, so I don't see how it could be hacked easily.

I don't know how my daughter's teacher (year 1) is doing during term time during lockdown, but it seems to me they could at least check in with kids virtually for a small amount of time, perhaps with small groups at a time . I'm struggling to get my daughter to do any of the tiny amount of worksheets we've been given because she thinks she's on holiday (which, to be fair, she is right now, but she wasn't the last two weeks).

I appreciate teachers have kids too, but not all of them do. Why wouldn't it be possible to spend, say, 20 minutes three times a week, or once day doing a zoom session during term time so that kids and parents can check in, e.g. this week we're learning to spell x, y and z', this week we're learning x number bonds' or just introducing the fun stuff on the worksheets and asking how people are getting on. Just a visible presence would make so much of a difference - we could be off until September.

It’s certainly doable for secondary age.. I home ed and my son does a couple of subjects as online classes (small companies specifically for the HE community) and there are full online schools such as interhigh and netschool.
I think the problem in the state school system just now is that provision is so varied across the UK. Some schools seem to be running full timetables online, whereas others seem to be doing very little. I think there will be a massive attainment gap for those currently in years 8-10 when GCSEs come round for those cohorts.

Middle manager, teacher and union rep here :) I have absolutely discouraged members (and my own team) for video teaching for the safeguarding issues already outlined. Myself and my staff are working very hard on Teams setting work, supporting students, chasing not attendees, and supporting students with online materials. It’s essentially full time work. Currently a lot of my staff are feeling the strain of getting to grips with a new system, looking after their own kids while trying to operate business as normal. My next job as their rep is to discuss allowances that need to be made for the mental wellbeing of us all.

Urgh so many grammatical errors, but you get my point

School closure is just going to widen the gap further

Agree with that Spring - and not just with private/grammar vs the rest. The gap will be massive when my dc go back between them and the more able kids. The only children whose parents haven't had to work and those from bigger families whose parents are working from home will have had a vastly different experience.

An able child with a 1-1 parent at home will probably actually do better than when in school. But my SN children (one who is the youngest in the year and still behind for his age) who have to share my attention with younger siblings will go back so much worse off. I hope they can repeat the year otherwise DS2 will be going into yr2 below reception level

DD's school is doing similar to what you describe, @MrsKoala and it works fairly well, although I did find the tasks mounted up and parents who were lacking printers found it hard as some of the tasks were fiddly on little screens.

I think the point some posters are missing is this was dropped on schools with virtually no notice. Some schools have invested heavily online and others haven't. My own school has plans to provide us all with a laptop but that's in the future. So we're all making do with our own equipment which is not great in many cases. Imagine what it's like for teachers in houseshares (UK has youngest teachers in the OECD). So the massive variation in what's on offer is mostly a result of very different starting positions.

And again Id like to correct the generalisation that all private schools have loads of tech, that their students all have loads of tech and that they are all super bright. My school is rubbish at tech, years behind and we don't have loads of money, nor do quite a lot of our students, many of whom are not at all bright and do need differentiation. Teachers, me included don't have a webcam that works and my laptop is shared between me and my two kids as I can't afford for them to have one each (and they go to my school). This is actually one scenario where looking at the lowest common denominator is important because if you don't you are excluding an awful lot of kids if you assume they'll all access these amazing tech based lessons

Not a teacher bashing thread but it clearly is.

Safeguarding

Not all children have access to their own computer.

Teachers are actually still working, in schools, minding key workers children, whilst setting lessons for all their own classes who are at home.

Teachers may also have their own families at home.

Have you actually used Zoom? A family chat descends into chaos, how on earth do you expect a class of 30 to work.