Virtual School

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DODD Teachers Chatboard

Virtual School

by Elle Emme

Jul 28, 2020

Today is the last day to put in the application for Virtual School... any current DODEA teachers do it before and care to share what it is like? Trying to decide if this will be a better fit for the coming school year (especially since I have my own children at home and felt our distance learning experience was a lot...) Thanks in advance!

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TGIF @Elle Emme, the online application is simply a Google Form. After applicants input their current teaching position and location along with the areas an they are interested and certified in teaching, applicants simply answer 5 short questions about their experience teaching online and how they handle different learners' needs while doing so. You cou...See More

Jul 28, 2020

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Positive Vibes @TGIF thank you. Yea, I went through it- just was curious of how working with the virtual school would be. I guess I will find out if selected.

Jul 29, 2020

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IsItFriday? @EE

Nobody really knows how this will turn out. Everything is just supposition.

This is the first time the DoDEA has offered a K-8 virtual school, and it sounds like they are still procuring the course ware. So how can we know anything. Please share if anyone here even knows the name of the course ware.

This emergency did...See More@EE

Nobody really knows how this will turn out. Everything is just supposition.

This is the first time the DoDEA has offered a K-8 virtual school, and it sounds like they are still procuring the course ware. So how can we know anything. Please share if anyone here even knows the name of the course ware.

This emergency didn't allow HQ to roll out the program slowly, and their wishful thinking (fingers crossed that the virus will be gone by August) lost us the opportunity to train and develop curriculum, and do practice virtual school over the summer. (If we can work one extra day, we can work 20 extra days.)

Virtual hubs already exist, but this possibly large quasi expansion of the hubs, with all the new virtual teachers working remotely (from home or local school sites) is untested.

Numbers will determine everything. The more students who choose virtual school, will mean more teething problems. Hopefully DoDEA will balance the numbers of students and teachers appropriately. But again, no one really knows what an appropriate ratio might be with a new and greatly expanded program.

We do know that despite all the CDC advice in Feb and Mar that DoDEA students made few efforts to socially distance, beyond an increased number of trips to the restroom for hand-washing. But those hand-washers were the same kids who leave the class three times every class period anyway.

We also know that by taking teachers out of the classroom to teach virtually, that we lose the opportunity to reduce class sizes. If half the students and half the teachers go to virtual school, then class sizes for those remaining will stay the same.

Of course, we were always going to hit that wall, as you can't reduce class sizes unless you hire more teachers. Full-time substitutes could help. But even hiring substitutes is difficult for DoDEA. (Maybe DoDEA could pay them appropriately...did that ever occur to HQ?) It's too bad that HQ actually increased average class sizes last year. That was unfortunate timing. It's also unfortunate that HQ abandoned all attempts to get a one-to-one laptop program going a few years a go.

Jul 29, 2020

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