VIRTUAL SCHOOL

What to do when/if we need to close school (campus) for unforeseen circumstances; yet you do not want to close school (learning)?


On April 8 and 9, 2010, after the state of emergency was declared in Bangkok, ISB made the decision to close campus. However, teachers were asked to keep their classes open, virtually.
Our school has implemented plenty of web 2.0 tools over the past 2-3 years to keep the classes alive and going: Panthernet, class blogs, Google accounts, Wikis, etc.
However, without any warnings of the closure, we had little preparation for how to proceed. Our school has since April 9th been developing a Virtual School Guideline.

How do we ensure that students who think they just got a free snow day actually check for assignments and complete them?
On that day, my two French INTRO classes had an old school paper test assigned. Students had been reviewing the days before and were ready. The next day, was the start of a week long Holiday. I decided to post the test on Panthernet, have students complete it at home and submit their test ALL ONLINE.
Wouldn’t they use their notes? To ensure that the test was done in a “proper” testing environment, I wrote specific instructions on the Panthernet assignment and I e-mailed those to the parents. Students had to allot themselves 1 hour to complete the test.

For my other classes, we had no major assignments due. Instructions were posted on Panthernet, but the actual assignments were posted on their class BLOGS. Again, to make sure that students completed their work, I e-mailed their personal e-mail as well as parents. Students had a week to complete the assignment. I invited them to e-mail me if they had questions.

I would consider my virtual school day to be fairly successful. Most students completed their work. The only students who did not were given a chance to make the work up. After all this was our first Virtual school day!

Image @JulyYu