My third grader did well today. He had about 3 hours of live time over the course of 6.5 hours. I do think our school did a good job of creating a schedule with breaks...my son was ready to get some wiggles out right around when each live session ended. We didn't have any technical issues but did have to adjust things like where to put the lamp and how to slant the tablet so his face filled the screen. I also saw how my son stares into space and daydreams during live sessions but I can't be too critical about that because I did the same thing as a kid. 

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs for the first day of DL for my 4th grader's charter school and my 7th grader's DCPS. Both were independently engaged and basically out of my hair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kudos to both schools for doing even better than the spring.

Can I ask how old your 4th grader is? Mine is young (turns 9 in Sept.) and I feel doesn't do as well on her own.

It's a fair question -- my 4th grader turns 10 in December and so is a bit on the older side. I also probably implied she was more independent than I meant -- I definitely plan to check on her work each day and during the week. Today I wanted to let her just do it on her own, assuming it was mostly social interaction and not much schoolwork involved.

Anonymous wrote:Awful. Turns out all my daughter's 'friends' are in a pod together in their neighborhood (which I understand, but, super super painful to watch a 4th grader just realize school no longer has a social place for her).

I'm hoping there is some amazing content and teaching, because first day was just the most boring meetings ever. Let her turn off the video and play with legos while the meetings went on in the background. Good prep for work zoom calls

I'm so sorry. That's pretty traumatic for a kid.

Janney 5th grade and Deal 8 grade were great. I can actually see the kids learning more via virtual learning, albeit at the expense of having fun in a classroom.

Awful. Turns out all my daughter's 'friends' are in a pod together in their neighborhood (which I understand, but, super super painful to watch a 4th grader just realize school no longer has a social place for her).

I'm hoping there is some amazing content and teaching, because first day was just the most boring meetings ever. Let her turn off the video and play with legos while the meetings went on in the background. Good prep for work zoom calls

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3rd grade. It’s going ok, but I can already tell the day is too long. They need to cut the morning meeting to 5-10 minutes and get rid of the after-lunch period unless its small groups. Live instruction needs to be over by lunch.

This. Why in the world isn’t this obvious?

The grass is not greener.

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs for the first day of DL for my 4th grader's charter school and my 7th grader's DCPS. Both were independently engaged and basically out of my hair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kudos to both schools for doing even better than the spring.

Can I ask how old your 4th grader is? Mine is young (turns 9 in Sept.) and I feel doesn't do as well on her own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Missed the first 15 minutes of the day because no one told us (or a lot of others in my kid's class) that you had to re-sign in to Teams to join a meeting. They just said to click on the link out of Canvas and you're in, so we sat there waiting to get let in to the meeting until another parent figured it out.

The teacher also didn't turn off the chat function so half the class (4th grade, WOTP school) clearly was tuning her out and just chatting amongst themselves.

Teachers can't turn off the chat, unfortunately, but supposedly DCPS is going to disable it for all students next week.

The chat can be turned off in Teams.

Anonymous wrote:Thumbs for the first day of DL for my 4th grader's charter school and my 7th grader's DCPS. Both were independently engaged and basically out of my hair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kudos to both schools for doing even better than the spring.

Sorry meant "Thumbs up" -- typing too fast!

Thumbs for the first day of DL for my 4th grader's charter school and my 7th grader's DCPS. Both were independently engaged and basically out of my hair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kudos to both schools for doing even better than the spring.

Super sad for my first grader. She was so excited, but declared the day not fun and said she won’t go back (tomorrow should be fun).

I think not really interacting with her friends And New teachers was really hard, or just felt too unnatural online. Her teachers and school are doing their best, but I’m just not sure how this kid who used to love school is going to manage this. Gotta really reflect on how I can help make it better for her.

Anonymous wrote:5th grader- so far, so good. We started off on the wrong foot by logging into teams when in fact we needed to go to Canvas instead. (And, despite this being a DCPS device, it says that both Chrome and Firefox are not supported browsers.)

My DC has been engaged for the most part. Now on lunch break.

We are having a no video game policy until after school. Do any other parents have similar bans on tech outside of school during the school day?

We are doing the same. 6th grade.

Anonymous wrote:First day went great! I credit the teacher for making the class run smoothly and MYSELF for prepping this weekend and keeping all this stuff on track. Back pat. Yes, please give yourselves one too! We don't do that enough.

One minor issue: We can't seem to use the hand raise or comment section functions on the Surface Go. Anyone else have this issue?

Same here with our DCPS device, but it works on our personal Chromebook.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is distance learning better than no school at all? Debatable!

Considering the amount of time that is wasted every day when in-person school is in session, DL is better from my perspective.

+1. My child met with his small group more frequently during DL last spring than he had for the entire year previous to that.

11:32 here and I'd say for grades 4 and under should have in person instruction while others do DL.