Staff and pupils ‘adapting quickly’ to remote learning

AN IT teacher in a busy Omagh school believes that students have embraced online learning and are engaging more during this lockdown than they did in March.

Sinead Moss, Head of IT and a Digital Leader at Sacred Heart College in Omagh, believes young people have increased their level of interaction with online learning and are working quicker now than they did during the first period of tight Covid-19 restrictions.

Ms Moss has been the school’s leading support in training staff in online teaching, learning strategies and forums.

She credits the students with being “very accommodating” throughout the coronavirus outbreak.

“I can see a notable improvement from the last lockdown in March in terms of interaction with the pupils,” she said.

“The pupils have got the hang of it very quickly and they are asking more questions.

“They are handing in their work much more speedily and they seem to be more on top of their game this time around.

“The students picked up the system quickly and the teachers were learning alongside them and sometimes they picked it up quicker than we did.

“Sometimes we had to talk them through how to use the system but we created a lot of training material for staff and the pupils so that was very helpful.

“I am working with exam classes and it remains very busy even when classes are online.

“The students have to do their best to get the best marks possible, and there is pressure there,” said Ms Moss.

RAPID

Remote learning was introduced rapidly to the school in March just days before the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced. This time around, schools will be operating remotely until at least the middle of February.

Ms Moss said the use of remote learning had gone “fairly smoothly” with staff and students quickly adapting to an increased use of technology.

She explained, “We had been working on improving our IT provision for a couple of years before the Covid-19 outbreak but we didn’t expect for it be needed so quickly.

“We decided to use Microsoft Teams and I created handouts to help train people how to get online.

“I never thought that we would ever need to use the technology to this extent, but I have to say, it has went fairly smoothly.

“In March, staff were using older laptops which were very slow and we just did not have the appropriate technology at the start and there were some broadband issues.

“During the first lockdown, we could not go into the school, but this time, if we do not have good broadband or a working device, we can go into our classrooms.

“The school has made an investment into hardware and purchased 28 tablets for the staff which have been a massive help.

“They are making a big difference this time as staff now have the technology they need to use the software,” said Ms Moss.

VERY DIFFERENT

The teachers have been adapting to a very different method of teaching over lockdown and have introduced online quizzes and pre-recorded classes.

Ms Moss continued, “We do have to teach differently online and the teachers have to create new content because we are not there physically teaching them and we have to show them how to do things in a more detailed way.

“We can record the classes and put them online so the students can rewatch them or watch it at a time that suits them. A lot of teachers have been doing Powerpoints with a voiceover, which is very beneficial if they are doing a task which includes a lot of new information.

“We can also set up quizzes to test their knowledge on the subject so there is a lot of useful tools that can be used while teaching online.
“There are pros and cons for everything, but it seems to be working well for us,” said Ms Moss.