Monday, June 15, 2020

Virtual Visits

On Sunday, June 14, 2020, my sister and I had a virtual tea party with my mother. Why virtual? My sister lives in Calgary and because my mother is in a high-risk demographic for infection, we are still keeping our distance. The tweet below, by reporter Travis Dhanraj, also reinforces my resolve to continue giving lots of people, including people I care about, lots of space.


Our visit lasted 2.5 hours. We ate cookies (that I dropped off wrapped as a gift outside her door the day before), drank tea, admired some craft projects she's made in the past, and listened as Mom showed us other things that sparked her interest at the time.









This connects to the other "virtual visits" I've had lately with students and teachers via Google Meet. The staff I work with have done incredible things with their students for the past few months of emergency response remote learning. Some decided late last month / early this month to either try out live (synchronous) online gatherings or expand their existing meetings to include other educators in the mix.

I don't have any photos of these student-teacher class meetings, because it was important to respect the privacy of all those participating. Was it the same as meeting face-to-face? Of course not! These virtual visits were opportunities to see each other, separated by screens, but still together. The benefits for everyone involved were social, emotional, mental, and academic. As a specialist teacher, I don't get the same chances to connect like classroom teachers do with their groups, and I was extremely grateful that teachers included me in conversations with their classes. Thank you Sonia Singh, Kerri Commisso, Brenda Kim, Farah Wadia, Renee Keberer, Jenny Chiu, Jen Balido-Cadavez and Diana Lung for allowing me to join class meetings.

Both types of visits (with students and aging parents) have similar secrets of success.

1) Prepare people
(Book a date and time in advance, set up an agenda, and plan topics to talk about. Ms Lung had her students devise questions to ask specific visiting staff members and this helped with the flow of conversation immensely. I adored listening to W and our principal, Mr. Webbe, chat together so naturally and attentively.)

2) Practice presenting
(The first few times using the technology will be bumpy. Try it out. Ms. Chiu and Mrs. Cadavez met beforehand with just a couple of students to review how to mute microphones and end calls.)

3) Don't do it alone
(Even when running online video conferences for adults, I've found it useful to have at least two designated facilitators present. While one leads the discussion, the other can do things like monitor the back channel, trouble shoot any tech difficulties, and notice things that may get missed. I'm super-grateful to Moyah Walker for playing this role the other day during our 2.5 hour LC3 TL network meeting. With entertaining my mother, having both daughters on the call meant that we could take turns going to the bathroom.)

I only have anecdotal evidence (e.g. comments from others saying how valuable these meetings have been). Educators want to know they are making a difference. I think this drawing is proof, at least for one educator, that she isn't forgotten and the effort is worth it.



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