Coronavirus- All schools to close? [MOD NOTE POST 346

drunkmonkey

FishOnABike wrote: »

It's not just unwillingness. The simple fact of the matter is that there are technical limitations both for the presenter and consumer of online lessons that it just might not be possible to work with.

What are the technical limitations, i'm not seeing any barriers for doing it where possible and if students have access to a screen of some kind like a phone, laptop, tablet, tv and an internet connection from a fixed line, wireless or mobile device.

Nobody is reinventing the wheel here it's a normal everyday thing depending on your occupation.

FishOnABike

drunkmonkey wrote: »

What are the technical limitations, i'm not seeing any barriers for doing it where possible and if students have access to a screen of some kind like a phone, laptop, tablet, tv and an internet connection from a fixed line, wireless or mobile device.

Nobody is reinventing the wheel here it's a normal everyday thing depending on your occupation.

I was in the middle of editing my reply above. See 2nd half of my post above.

If your broadband doesn't meet the minimum required standard you're not going to get it to work.

S.G.M.

drunkmonkey wrote:

Yes 30 at the one time, I only know how it works from live trading rooms i'm in via skype but you can have 100's of adults live at the one time and one guy controlling and presenting everything. You can do it via youtube as well, here's a live youtube example with 850 people viewing.

Irregardless of willingness, that just won't work with majority of teenagers.
Of course, you'll get teachers that won't want to do it even if it would work but that all the teachers in our school desperately want the school to stay open as they know how awkward it will be for the exam students if it closes.
The majority of nay sayers to that idea is simply down to the fact they know it won't work.

drunkmonkey

FishOnABike wrote: »

If your broadband doesn't meet the minimum required standard you're not going to get it to work.

You will not need a solid 10mb, 1mb will do, they don't need to stream in 4k unless it's a very pretty teacher. There's not many parts of the country you can't get that level of service in.

TheValeyard

Management have told staff here that teachers may be forced to come to work where camera will be set up in rooms. Not a fcuking chance that is going to work!

drunkmonkey

S.G.M. wrote: »

Irregardless of willingness, that just won't work with majority of teenagers.
Of course, you'll get teachers that won't want to do it even if it would work but that all the teachers in our school desperately want the school to stay open as they know how awkward it will be for the exam students if it closes.
The majority of nay sayers to that idea is simply down to the fact they know it won't work.

It will work if you put in the effort. It's been proven to work in other countries, the collages here can do it.

Your blaming the fact it's teenagers now it won't work. Stop with the excuses it's pathetic. What ever happened to sure we'll give it a go.

drunkmonkey

TheValeyard wrote: »

Management have told staff here that teachers may be forced to come to work where camera will be set up in rooms. Not a fcuking chance that is going to work!

Take the camera home or buy your own, screw having to go into school if you can avoid it.

_Brian

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Take the camera home or buy your own, screw having to go into school if you can avoid it.

If the kids aren’t there there is no risk for teachers going in to work no more than anyone going to work.

PhoenixParker

Seriously, distance learning has been done for over a hundred years. Neither the primary school nor the secondary school curriculum is rocket science. None of it needs high quality broadband or a streaming service at that level.

Read these chapters in your book, read these supplementary articles, watch this you tube video by a subject matter expert, email me anything you're struggling with and I'll prepare a handout/powerpoint/short video explanation.

Do questions 1-5 at the end of the chapter and drop them to the school by Friday.

Will it be as good as in person learning - no, will it keep things ticking over - yes.

drunkmonkey

_Brian wrote: »

If the kids aren’t there there is no risk for teachers going in to work no more than anyone going to work.

I'd rather be sitting at home in my boxers.

FishOnABike

drunkmonkey wrote: »

You will not need a solid 10mb, 1mb will do, they don't need to stream in 4k unless it's a very pretty teacher. There's not many parts of the country you can't get that level of service in.

Streaming services like Netflix reccomend 5MBit minimum for standard definition. If you want a reliable connection you need a bit of headroom beyond that. Add in multiple users (a few pupils watching online lessons and one or two parents working from home) and you're not going to have much luck with less than a 30MBit connection.

drunkmonkey

FishOnABike wrote: »

Streaming services like Netflix reccomend 5MBit minimum for standard definition. If you want a reliable connection you need a bit of headroom beyond that. Add in multiple users (a few pupils watching online lessons and one or two parents working from home) and you're not going to have much luck with less than a 30MBit connection.

What's with all the excuses, seriously, you'd have multiple internet connection in a house with your senario above. A fixed line and possibly 4 mobile hotspot all on separate feeds. It's entirely doable.

KildareP

The likes of Zoom require kilobits, not megabits, of bandwidth.

It's surprisingly good even an average 3G mobile connection.

I think the vast majority though will just frontload notes and materials, check-in and keep in touch with students through e-mail and then use the video conference style teaching more as an "all hands" type solution once or twice a week rather than the 8-4 everyday solution.

It's going to be a very interesting test of our internet and cloud systems if we end up with an increasingly possible situation where most of the world is trying to work remotely alongside all of the usual traffic types from Netflix, Prime, etc. In many cases it's the same systems and same data centres carrying both but never with both operating at peak at the same time.

wirelessdude01

PhoenixParker wrote: »

Seriously, distance learning has been done for over a hundred years. Neither the primary school nor the secondary school curriculum is rocket science. None of it needs high quality broadband or a streaming service at that level.

Read these chapters in your book, read these supplementary articles, watch this you tube video by a subject matter expert, email me anything you're struggling with and I'll prepare a handout/powerpoint/short video explanation.

Do questions 1-5 at the end of the chapter and drop them to the school by Friday.

Will it be as good as in person learning - no, will it keep things ticking over - yes.

I can just imagine my 1st class managing this 🙄

anacc

I can't work from home because my "broadband" is so crap that webex has difficulty, the suggestion that my kids could somehow attend class remotely over the same connection is laughable. Nevermind that a lot of the neighbours would also start working from home and their kids would be trying to attend class remotely too. It won't work.

S.G.M.

drunkmonkey wrote:

Your blaming the fact it's teenagers now it won't work. Stop with the excuses it's pathetic. What ever happened to sure we'll give it a go.

It won't work. The wi-fi connection etc in homes in a lot of the country is awful. Now that 'every' teacher is expected to do it means even more lag in streams. Get your head out of the clouds.

Metroid diorteM

anacc wrote: »

I can't work from home because my "broadband" is so crap that webex has difficulty, the suggestion that my kids could somehow attend class remotely over the same connection is laughable. Nevermind that a lot of the neighbours would also start working from home and their kids would be trying to attend class remotely too. It won't work.

Record the lessons with smartphone and upload to YouTube. Ask kids to do whatever exercise and email it to you? Maybe they have to write it out and photograph it to stop them copy pasting

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I'd rather be sitting at home in my boxers.

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Take the camera home or buy your own, screw having to go into school if you can avoid it.

... and you'd be the first person to whinge abotu teachers not working because they were sitting at home in their boxers.

For the record, I'm no teacher - but I'm curious to know about your practical experience of Sjypeing a class of 25 8-9 year-olds simultaneously? And by practical, I mean not beignning with, "I would imagine/think/rather be..."

PhoenixParker

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

I can just imagine my 1st class managing this ��

Honestly why not?

Kids that age can work you tube. There are dozens of videos targeted at that age covering maths & reading concepts. With some arrangements and posting they can be sent books to read from the school library. They can work through their workbooks, maybe do some form of small project, write a paragraph about their day, learn some spellings. . .

A simple plan from a teacher is extremely feasible.

They’ll need parental input and support but they’d need that with live streaming or any big solution anyway.

It won’t be perfect but it’s certainly possible.

wirelessdude01

PhoenixParker wrote: »

Honestly why not?

Kids that age can work you tube. There are dozens of videos targeted at that age covering maths & reading concepts. With some arrangements and posting they can be sent books to read from the school library. They can work through their workbooks, maybe do some form of small project.

They’ll need parental input and support but they’d need that with live streaming or any big solution anyway.

It won’t be perfect but it’s certainly possible.

Parental support is the issue. We were talking in school today about how to approach things is and when the closure occurs. We can name those kids that would do the work provided and those that wouldn't as there is no parental support.

deiseindublin

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Parental support is the issue. We were talking in school today about how to approach things is and when the closure occurs. We can name those kids that would do the work provided and those that wouldn't as there is no parental support.

For sure, it really depends on where you are teaching. I can't imagine that many of my students would take it seriously that I was setting work remotely for them, or that I was willing to give feedback. That'd be for saps.

Whereas my own (albeit younger) kids would be thrilled skinny at the thought of having work set. They've already come home with a list of apps and ideas for new languages they'll start on duolingo. They've used Padlet etc and are loving finding other similar apps.

They may not learn as much as they would in school, but it'll be refreshing to see where it takes them, instead of driving them all along a narrow path.

PhoenixParker

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Parental support is the issue. We were talking in school today about how to approach things is and when the closure occurs. We can name those kids that would do the work provided and those that wouldn't as there is no parental support.

The problem isn’t technology. The kids who don’t have parental involvement won’t be sitting watching Skype either.

Teachers can put something useful together for the kids and parents willing to engage. Broadband etc. is largely irrelevant.

lucy2010

There will always be some who will and some who won't because they are simply not ar$%d.

Will the fact a Pandemic has been announced speed up schools closures ?

rainbowtrout

PhoenixParker wrote: »

China's death toll and cases levelled off because they shut the country down and took extreme measures not because the virus went away.

I am aware of that. But those measures will kick in here too, I predict that the schools will shut down on Friday and we won't be back until after Easter.

TTLF

As a student just a word from fellow students

1. Nobody (teens anyway) use skype anymore, it's slow, old and practically abandoned
(except "business" skype)

2. My schools been trying Google Hangouts, they're apparently pretty decent?

3. As a fellow student with an underlying heart condition, I'm starting to get a little wary and stressed about the virus and being in 5th year, I really don't want to get sick due to schools not closing.

Italy literally just added another 2K+ cases. Please think of the health of kids like me from this too.

All saying, I really hope this works out the best way for everyone, and I personally think it sucks it's come to this. Thankfully I have a PC I built that I can use for classes and such and will be happy to work away via homeschool if needs be.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

lucy2010 wrote: »

There will always be some who will and some who won't because they are simply not ar$%d.

Will the fact a Pandemic has been announced speed up schools closures ?

And there will.be those who ignore the practicalities and expertise of an experienced group because they can't be arsed contemplating the reality.

What's YOUR practical experience with large numbers of said age group...?

rainbowtrout

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's not an open debating room in skype, you talk and share slides and they listen if they choose to. I get there are inequalities and it won't work for every student
I would certainly like to try and teach 30 kids online, this can't do attitude is quite deplorable to be honest, I would have expected more willingness to try to adapt in the situation.

People aren't being awkward for the sake of it. Rural broadband is an oxymoron if there ever was one. My ETB had a meeting today and several issues were raised including:

• My broadband is crap but I'm happy to upload material and email to students via group email and they can email back queries etc.
  
  

Response: Tough luck, you should be sitting at your computer when you are timetabled for 3rd year french for a live session.

• I have young children, if my creche/primary school shuts down I will have to mind them, I can't teach a live session and mind small children at the same time

Response: Tough luck, your childminding arrangements are your own business.

• What if there are students who do not have adequate access at home, aside from broadband issues, there are families with multiple children in school, they may only have one laptop. How can they all be online at the same time?

Response: That's no excuse, sure they all have phones, they can use them....




I can't say my ETB has been in any way sympathetic to genuine queries from staff.

dhaughton99

Could teachers be asked to come into school without the students?

Rosita

I think some people are way overthinking this going on about live-streaming classes and putting stuff on YouTube. For many subjects notes can be provided and if students actually study them they’d be amazed at the effects rather than just always relying on spoon-feeding in class. Not everything has to be live singing and dancing. Why not get off the phone for once and try a bit of old-fashioned hard graft in exam preparation?

If schools do close between Friday and Easter most students will miss a maximum of just eight days. Mickey Mouse stuff really. I know plenty of students who’d rack up such absenteeism in a month though somehow they are rarely mentioned in polite society.

rainbowtrout

dhaughton99 wrote: »

Could teachers be asked to come into school without the students?

I can't see it happening in most places to be honest, closed means closed. I work in the only school in my town. I reckon if it was open for teachers to come to work after a few days we would start seeing parents dropping off their kids to be rid of them out of the house.