Let's get organized - Organizing your virtual classroom

The hardest part of planning for virtual learning is trying to organize information and assignments so that it will be easy for students, parents and me to keep up with the class information. In the spring, I just utilized Google Classroom and grouped content and assignments together week by week. This worked, for some but there were still some that were confused and used it as an excuse to give up. I knew I needed something better.

I have seen all the Bitmoji love, and was reluctant to jump in because I know how much I love the chance to be creative and thought I would get lost down the rabbit hole. So, I decided to go with an online bulletin approach to keep things simple. I think this makes is clear for parents and students and is easy to follow. Best of all it was pretty easy to create. I started a new Google Slides presentation, chose a transparent background, drew some shapes, inserted text boxes, and linked everything. And yes....I did update my Snapchat Bitmoji to Spanish and used it a little bit. 

My plan is to post this each week to Google Classroom and send it home via email to parents. As for the actual assignments, I am going to create a Topic for each week and then add this board and the assignments for the week as well as the recordings of the live class under that topic individually. This should simplify the view for students so there is no confusion about what is due each week.

Here is a picture of the landing page. I still have a few things to do, but the ideas are there. I am excited to record myself saying all the vocabulary we will be using so students can refer back to it. I worry about connectivity issues when everyone is streaming live, so I thought this was a good backup.

  

I added another slide for each class day. (We are going to alternating blocks with Friday for extra help.) With the block, Monday and Tuesday are together and Wednesday and Thursday are together. I made sure to have the Unit Goals and the State Standards just as I would for lessons in my classroom. You never know when an administrator will pop in! Those are both Google Docs. 

I decided I am going to list assignments for the day and provide links to Google Classroom. Originally I was going to link to each assignment and then I realized how much updating that would be on my end, and decided against it. By using the list, parents can follow up with students about each specific item.

It is not fancy, but clear and simple. I think it will work well and really help keep me, students and parents on the same page. If you want the template, or have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you.

Check out the whole board live here.