I'm a senior in high school right now. When I left for spring break about half way through March, there were only rumors that there was a possibility of prom being cancelled because of the pandemic. Shortly after that, the district decided to close its doors through the first week of April, and now indefinitely... Now I'm stuck doing 'remote learning', and I and the rest of #classof2020 may not even get to do an in-person graduation. Twelve years of working toward this graduation, and it may not even happen. I'm feeling pretty down at the moment... Where the #classof2020 be at?
Hey skyfox. I feel great sadness for students like you in the Class of 2020 who are facing the possibility of not being able to do an in-person graduation ceremony due to the outbreak. If I'm being honest though, I'm kinda curious about what it's like to be a student at a time like this. I literally graduated high school last year and I decided not to go to college. I'm particularly curious about online schooling. I mean, is it better than the traditional classroom or is it somehow worse? I personally might find it enjoyable because you can have a snack whenever you want, you can wear your pajamas.. I assume you have those freedoms in remote learning. I don't know. If you may, can you school me in what online schooling is like?
The district is saying that they're still hoping to have an in-person graduation but if the restrictions on large groups aren't lifted soon enough, they are making plans to host a 'virtual graduation'. It's not ideal, but at this point I'm going to take what I can get. As far as what online schooling is like, it's kind of better and worse at the same time if that makes any sense. It's better in that it lets you have more flexibility as far as how and when you do the classwork, which obviously is a huge benefit, especially at a time like this. But at the same time, it's difficult for us as students, and especially for the teachers, because it's such a huge transition to make and it has a steep learning curve just because of how different it is from a traditional classroom setting. The way it works is basically we use an online platform (which we used to a lesser extent before) to login and complete assignments posted in there and attendance is done based on your participation in a daily discussion question. Every few days, some of my instructors do Zoom conference calls where the teacher provides updates as far as what is going on with the class, and information about assignments, as well as answering questions that students have about the work. Unfortunately, there have been some pretty significant outages and just issues in general with this online platform just because of the fact that so many people are on it and they aren't used to handling that many people trying to be online at once, and so it's kind of hit and miss as to whether we're actually able to login or not. It's been an adventure to say the least.
Yes! That's the spirit. I really hope that these restrictions can loosen up before your date of graduation, but even if it doesn't, anything is better than nothing. If it means having a virtual graduation, then so be it. Like you said, you gotta take what you can get. Ah, I understand. Yea, I can imagine this transition being kinda overwhelming for many considering we've been used to sitting down in a classroom for the past 12 years. Oh yeah... I never thought about the technical issues of online school at first. It really has been an adventure. I'm sorry to hear about this.
