Being at home when you aren’t supposed to be can be a bit disorienting. Your mind is wired to, in my case, be in a classroom with my students—not sitting on my patio writing blog posts. This is only my third full day home (due to a state wide school closure as a result of the Coronavirus) yet my concept of time, specifically “what day is it”...is beginning to get a little slippery. Like...it doesn’t “feel” like Thursday and this past Monday seems like it was 3 weeks ago!
I’m also feeling a bit anxious because I’m trying to figure out things like...how much time should I spend in front of my Mac Book Pro and iPad Pro? I literally just had to get up and walk away from my laptop because I fell down the rabbit hole of watching my principal work, in real time, “in” a Google doc I’m supposed to be keeping track of updates on. It was making me crazy. I wanted to tell her to finish her thoughts so I could act on them! Then I thought, “What must this be like from her end?” I can only imagine what she must be thinking as...she can see who is “in” the document with her. Was she feeling like she was being watched? Was it as stressful for her as it was for me? Not only am I supposed to stay current on what my principal is communicating to us, I am expected to stay in contact with my families...at minimum, 1/x per week. That just isn’t enough for me. I am connecting with my families daily right now...responding to emails, and texts in the Remind app. I am on top of it! It just feels like I’m doing more than I should be...nothing new.
I need to figure out how to manage my time. Give myself permission to “be off-line.” Give myself permission to just “be.” I’ve done this to some degree. I’m allocating time to get things done around the house, writing for my blog, going for walks, listening to podcasts, listening to music, running errands...while I still can. One of the things I am enjoying about this experience is the manner in which I am currently using Google Classroom with my students. I wrote a bit about this yesterday. I like the process of creating content for my students. I also like how GC gives you the ability to schedule assignments. My workflow includes...
1. Creating the content for GC
2. Saving the content as a draft in GC...that way I can go back to it and edit if needed before moving to the next step
3. Scheduling the content to go “live” in GC
4. Creating an announcement to families in the Drafts app then copying it for the next step which is...
5. Getting on the Remind app to announce that content is ready for the students
I’m also using the Announcement feature within GC to speak directly to the students...informing them of what I’ve posted for the day. Like the announcements I’m “drafting” in Drafts for my Remind app announcements, I writing my GC announcements in Drafts first then copy/pasting them into GC.
I've figured out how to automate some of this so as to make things a little easier. For example, I write the announcement for Google Classroom the day before (see above) and schedule it for the following day. And...this is so nerdy...I just figured out for to do the same for announcements I make in the Remind app. Doing this allows me get up the following day and not feel like I have to rush to get things up and ready for my families.