Online Teaching: Tips to save time!

This is a short post to give advice, after lot of people asked for this in private messages, about how to manage time following the approach I suggest in a previous blog (hybrid approach between synchronous and asynchronous teaching via the use of Onenote and Loom/Screen Casting lessons). 

My Golden Rules to be time efficient!

1. Use a platform to share your resources, mine is Onenote, but it could be Google Classroom, Canvas, Sway, your School Website or even Padlet and stick to it! Padlet is a great alternative as it allows you to embed content nicely! 

2. If using Onenote (I thoroughly recommend it), create a template of your lesson/lessons (a Onenote page) and copy and paste it for subsequent ones. In my case I always have a picture of my virtual classroom and a description of what we will be covering that week.

3. Plan activities for a week's worth of lessons, it saves time! Distribute the work at the beginning of the week.

4. Combine the work on Onenote, or any other platform, with Teams so that you can give instructions at the beginning of the lessons and do a whole class fast Starter/ Plenary activity.

5. Reuse resources you already have! Your word worksheet can work fantastically well with Onenote, for example. If you insert any Word Document  as a Printout on Onenote, and make the image background, students can just write on top of it: with a digital pen or typing! Also you can just use PPT and record a voice over or just use your PPT with different hyperlinks to your activities, which you can share with your students directly. In that way your PPT  be becomes your platform (Virtual Classroom) Start small!!! If going for the PPT route, check slidesmania as it offers many great FREE PPT templates which will make your content stand out! 

6. Use Snipping Tool! (IT IS PART OF WINDOWS 10) With this app, you can screenshot any  section of your digital textbook, worksheet, PDF past paper and save it as an image which you can then paste into Onenote or any other tool, such as PPT, word, Canva etc...

6. Think of ways to practice the language in an interactive way to engage students: Quizizz, LearningApps, Flippity, Wheel of names, MS Forms/Google Forms, Deck Toys, Genially, Padlet, Screen Casting and Flipgrid are brilliant options for that and just add the links. 

7. Do not reinvent the wheel!:SHARE THE ABOVE RESOURCES WITH YOUR DEPARTMENT. Teams or a Departmental Onenote with resources for each Year group is great for this. Also, make sure all teachers in your department do have access to each other's Onenotes so that they can copy and paste ideas and resources from each other. 

8. Use as many platforms as possible that would help with your marking: Google/MS Forms, Quizizz, Quizlet, Deck Toys and LearningApps are fantastic for this! So they are a great alternative for H/W tasks. Also, why not giving students the answers and they mark it themselves in another lesson? Carousel Learning is also fantastic for that. 

Remember, you are creating lessons that you will be able to reuse in consecutive years in a blended learning environment! IT IS A DEPARTMENTAL INVESTEMENT! YOU WILL SAVE A FORTUNE ON PHOTOCOPYING WHEN YOU ARE BACK TO FACE TO FACE TEACHING!

Look at this post about how to blend learning.