Last Updated April 13
It has been about a month since schools in St. Louis closed their doors and began to move to a remote learning format due to coronavirus concerns.
During that time, there has been an overwhelming amount of resources shared and made available to educators.
We want to help cut through the noise and with a curated selection of tools for educators and school leadership. This page features a round-up of resources and best practices to help educators with remote learning and supporting their students and families.
Have a great resource you think we should add? Email us at connect@theopportunitytrust.org.
Contents
Remote Learning
Getting Started
Edsurge has a post about setting up an online classroom. You can also join one of their weekly webinars for school leaders on how to move classes online.
Instruction Partners published a Leadership Toolkit that guides educators through the building blocks that need to be in place before meaningful learning can be achieved.
Online Learning Tools
Virtual Teaching Platforms
- G Suite for Education – Google’s education tools include Classroom, Hangouts, Drive, Pages and more and expanded access to premium tools are free to schools during the coronavirus
- Microsoft Teams – free for schools and universities, Microsoft Teams gives schools, teachers, and parents all the resources you need to move to a remote classroom
- Edmoto – allows teachers to send messages, share class materials, and make learning accessible anywhere.s always free and designed specifically for educators.
Other Online Tools
- Kahoot – allows you to create checks for understanding and is offering free services during this time.
- Edpuzzle – Enables you to upload videos and embed activities and checks for understanding in the same place.
- Nearpod – instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for collaborative learning experiences.
- Flipgrid – Engage and empower every voice in your classroom or at home by recording and sharing short, awesome videos
- Zoom – offering it’s video conferencing platform to K-12 schools for free.
- Important to note: Some districts are banning zoom – read more about concerns and issues before you use Zoom for remote learning.
- Prezi – Create compelling video updates, or present alongside your content to keep everyone engaged. Works with Webex, Zoom, MS Teams, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and more
- Protorio – offering a free version of their platform that helps administer secure remote exams.
- Genius Scan – a scanner app for your phone so you can quickly scan your paper documents on the go and export them as multi-page PDF files
Resources for Online Content
Wide Open School is an effort of 25+ organizations to centralize tools for parents and educators in the wake of the coronavirus.
Achieve the Core has free, ready-to-use classroom resources that support excellent, standards-aligned instruction for all students.
Channel Nine has a Learning Toolkit for educators and caregivers that features free access to educational programming and games that is all aligned to MO and IL state learning standards. Much of the material is also available in Spanish.
Transcend has created a hub with some of the best resources for staying informed and for implementing online learning.
TNTP created a list of free online courses for students across grades and subjects.
Social-Emotional Learning
Wide Open Schools has resources for emotional well-being.
WE created a remote SEL resources page which includes opportunities and ideas for young people to remotely engage in service-learning.
Students with Disabilities
The National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools has published requirements, guidelines, and resources for educating students with disabilities while schools move to remote learning.
The Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) is keeping a google doc of considerations to help guide decision making.
Diverse Learner’s Cooperative put together a document to help conduct virtual IEP meetings.
The Council for Exceptional Children has a recorded webinar on teaching special education online.
School Operations
Edgility Consulting recorded a webinar about virtual hiring that’s available on their website.
EdFuel offers remote hiring services including hosting virtual job fairs.
Charter School Growth Fund wrote an article about multi-dimensional teacher hiring in a 2D world.
Plans from Other Schools
Success Academies shared their remote learning framework in this slide deck.
KIPP is sharing their extensive resource bank which includes plans and guides for everything from operations to caring for staff’s mental health.
The Charter School Growth Fund complied a post with high-quality practices and resources that schools are using and they’re continuing to update with lessons learned.
District Responses to COVID-19 School Closures – The top 12 districts across the US share their early plans for teaching, learning, and supports during the pandemic in this database.
Supporting Students and Families
Child Wellbeing
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has resources for helping children and families cope with social distancing and to prevent panic.
ASCD has guidance on how schools can respond to this public health crisis using the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model to support students and their families.
The CDC has published guidelines on how to talk to children about COVID-19.
Parents can sign up through EdNavigator to recieve a daily message via email to help plan one great thing for learning the next day.
Local Resources
St. Louis City and St. Louis County have landing pages where they are updating the latest news, guidelines, and mandates to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus locally.
Operation Food Search has created a centralized map of meal sites where families can access free meals for kids ages 18 and younger across the St. Louis Region during the COVID-19 emergency.
The United Way 2-1-1 is keeping an updated list of resources for food, utilities, and other local relief efforts.
