COVID-19 has presented a new challenge for education; students’ education must occur through remote distance learning. This need for remote learning has impacted School Administrators, Educators, Staff, Students, and Families. School Administrators are facing the challenge of providing tools for educators and students to facilitate a proper distance learning experience.
The Coronavirus pandemic presents new obstacles for education, which has brought many opportunities for collaboration. Students need a way to collaborate with their teachers and peers while in multiple locations. With digital collaborative learning, students can receive lessons and communicate with their educators via laptop, tablet, or smartphone; they also have to ability to access all their recorded lessons online. To address this, Educators and Students are now relying on collaboration tools like Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams for remote education.
By leveraging collaboration and unified-communication tools, students and educators gain the ability to access educational materials and collaborate with their peers remotely. Many educators would agree that collaboration technology allows more students to continue to learn through chatting, discussions, and sharing. Students are also advancing their social skills that help engage learning, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and many more essential skills that they need in today’s world.
In addition to increased collaboration, tools like Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex also help keep students, and administrators secure via their compliant platform. In a world of Zoombombing and privacy concerns, ensuring your provider has the policies and security controls in place is essential to keep the identity and data of students and staff secure.
How Mineola Public School is leveraging Cisco Webex to extend collaboration
Mineola Public Schools, a K-12 district on Long Island, has been using collaboration with its high school students for many years. With COVID-19, Mineola has extended its use of collaboration to all grades, using Webex Meetings to allow students to continue to learn while not physically at their schools.
Mineola Public Schools is a Cisco powered environment that utilizes Webex for collaboration with their students and teachers. They also have and a Cisco TelePresence MX800, that was installed in the high school by Core BTS. Mineola and Core BTS have been partners in technology for over 12 years. This partnership has enabled Mineola Public Schools to be a leader in educational technology, which allowed them to take advantage of Webex & Cisco collaboration technology during this difficult time.
This experience with Webex technology has allowed Mineola Public Schools to make a smooth transition into today’s remote learning environment. They almost immediately started their remote or distance learning program within a week after they had to close school grounds. Mineola Public Schools students & faculty have been very vocal about their remote learning experience with Webex on Twitter.
How are they using Webex?
1-on-1 Sessions
Morning debriefing about students….with coffee! @doc_downeyMHS @mineolahs #MineolaProud pic.twitter.com/f6guO92SKA
— Patricio Romero (@SchoolpsyRomero) March 23, 2020
Class Meetings
So happy to see my #APCSP kids today! We of course talked about the AP updates & their #CreatePT progress, but we also talked a little about what they’ve been up to & how they’re feeling. Remember: it’s a big change for them, too! Make sure your students are adjusting well! 🤍 pic.twitter.com/LMEJO9jKpg
— Sabrina Knopf (@Knopf_Math) March 21, 2020
Virtual Office Hours
We are sporting our Mineola Spirit Wear… available for your questions and would love to say hello. #MineolaProud 🔴⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/4Wifh9bmPO
— Mineola High School (@mineolahs) March 23, 2020
School District Meetings
Another day, another debriefing. Unleashed some impressive stuff today. These admin are rock stars- exhibiting leadership during difficult times. We (and I) would be lost without them. Thank you !! #MineolaProud pic.twitter.com/IIjSo9ogFu
— Michael Nagler (@NaglersNotions) March 18, 2020
