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Online Grade School

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SocOfAutism
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03 Sep 2020, 11:07 am

My son started online first grade this week. It is lucky I am not working because good lord, it’s been difficult.

Our city has not included an instructional technology aspect to their online curriculum. They are expecting the teachers to set up their own pages in a wonky infrastructure. There are errors all over the place. The kids can’t navigate because of the errors so a parent is expected to sit there with them and figure out what is supposed to happen.

Then they are using this virtual meeting software to meet twice a day. So my son, with ADHD and sensory problems, has to stare into the faces of 10 other kids and somehow focus on what the teacher is saying. Then there are problems with muting and background noise.

It’s all so confusing.

Years ago I worked in software development as the lead of a documentation team. So it’s extra irritating for me to see how things could easily be fixed and not have the power to do it.

Thumbs down for online school so far.



Pieplup
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03 Sep 2020, 8:30 pm

SocOfAutism wrote:
My son started online first grade this week. It is lucky I am not working because good lord, it’s been difficult.

Our city has not included an instructional technology aspect to their online curriculum. They are expecting the teachers to set up their own pages in a wonky infrastructure. There are errors all over the place. The kids can’t navigate because of the errors so a parent is expected to sit there with them and figure out what is supposed to happen.

Then they are using this virtual meeting software to meet twice a day. So my son, with ADHD and sensory problems, has to stare into the faces of 10 other kids and somehow focus on what the teacher is saying. Then there are problems with muting and background noise.

It’s all so confusing.

Years ago I worked in software development as the lead of a documentation team. So it’s extra irritating for me to see how things could easily be fixed and not have the power to do it.

Thumbs down for online school so far.

I've never really went to those beyond the required meetings i have to do every couple weeks for my 504 plan. For the most part they don't have a problem atleast at the current school. That's a huge problem with it. Alot of the times there are technical difficulties on both ends and they do expect you to do some of the work as well. I can understand your frustration with it. Honestly attending all the meetings i have to attend especially since sometimes i have 3 at once. 8O. but I guess with me I can for the most part get along on my own. by using my resources. A lot of the times it a similiar story. Like I went to this one school that had trouble with state testing like a large amount of trouble multiples times in a row. Like at some point you gotta figure it out??


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DW_a_mom
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04 Sep 2020, 1:35 am

Can you change the view setting so that your son only sees one face at a time? I know zoom has that option. I think it is a "speaker only" setting.

Have you considered offering a limited number of volunteer hours to help fix the problems?

I can't even begin to imagine how it has been for you and all the other parents with elementary school children. What a mess. I feel for you, I really do.


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SocOfAutism
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14 Sep 2020, 7:26 am

I don’t think they’re going to let us parents volunteer for awhile because of the Coronavirus panic. I did break and send the teacher two short videos after another parent yelled at her in front of the kids on the video chat. There was a real easy way to fix the problem, so I sent the solution directly to the teacher.

It’s enlightening (and disturbing) to hear the way the teacher talks to the kids sometimes. I’m going to make another thread in general about that specifically.