From In-Person To Virtual Teaching
I am one of the web developers at SMART tasked with building Lumio by SMART, our interactive lesson building and delivery tool. I spend my days building this tool, and with Code Club I got the opportunity to experience it. One thing I noticed while teaching virtually is the unexpected and total silence when class begins; it is eerily quiet! To create some more engagement opportunities for students, I chose to begin each lesson with a Shout It Out! activity, during which each student contributed thoughtful and witty responses to my question. I could tell they were all engaged and participating right away; my silent classroom wasn't so quiet anymore and I was getting a glimpse into my students' personalities.
During this year's Code Club, we also gave students lesson links after each class so they could keep practicing the concepts on their own or simply refer back to steps in a coding process.
At the end of the unit, students presented their final coding projects. Though I was worried students wouldn't want to come off mute to present, I didn't need to be; they were eager to speak about their projects to a wider audience. They found such creative ways to apply coding concepts learned throughout the unit!
I can't wait to do Code Club again and I hope more and more teachers try using Lumio to deliver curriculum.
Special thanks to Ben Ryan, Grade 8 Homeroom Teacher at Bearspaw School, for collaborating with SMART on this very special project! If you are interested in trying Lumio by SMART, you can do so for free here.