Zooming into learning
Online tools are making continuation of classes possible, despite shelter-in-place order.
Audra Dawkins
A freshman art class observes a demonstration by art teacher Malisa Suchanya on Zoom. Students will continue to learn digitally in the coming weeks.
March 18, 2020
This story was updated on March 19, 2020 at 12:30 p.m. and revised for clarity.
After Monday’s shelter-in-place announcement for Bay Area citizens to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by restricting outings to essential trips, students are finding themselves at home, video conferencing into digital classrooms.
Students and teachers are meeting online via Zoom, a digital conference application, much like a normal school day, with 70-minute classes, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Mondays are teacher preparation days, according to President Ann Marie Krejcarek.
“I’m missing people in person because it’s just not as connective for me,” English teacher Julia Arce said. “But I’ve enjoyed how open, receptive and professional my students have been.”
Links to classes are sent through email or found on the LMS pages of individual classes, making them easily accessible to the student body.
“Navigating Zoom was not as hard as I thought it was going to be because the interface was very clear,” freshman Audra Dawkins said. “I enjoyed my first day because there was no commute time, but it was challenging to create one-on-one time with the teacher.”
Although learning online is an adjustment in place of physically attending classes, there are features allowing students to “raise” their digital hands, have breakout sessions with smaller groups of students, and chat with fellow participants.
“It was really easy to communicate with teachers and focus just on them as everyone else was able to be muted,” junior Ella Holliday said. “I am looking forward to doing more group projects because that will be interesting and new online.”
“I’m very impressed by the attentiveness of the students,” Arce said. “I think students were able to adjust and navigate really easily.”
