We are now in a time when education is truly reliant on whether or not your WIFI is working properly. This is the time when educators and teaching professionals have to be extremely technologically capable of creating a classroom on a computer screen. They must also be creative enough to develop routines that keep the students engaged for the thirty minutes time slots that they are on a Zoom conference. In this new world, the internet is heavily relied on to teach our scholars. This a new day and age and our veteran teachers may not have been completely prepared for it. Educators of the past were trained on the different classroom management techniques but how do you replicate that online? Blended learning is the combination of in-person learning and online learning opportunities. In this paper, I will discuss my experience with blended learning and how I use different technology-based strategies or programs to fully engage my scholars daily. This has definitely been a journey that I was not completely prepared for but my passion for teaching and learning has given me the motivation that I need to survive this whole new world of learning.
In this blended learning world, parents are our co-teachers as well. Some of our parents are learning to maneuver through this world just like teachers because they are on the front line of their child’s education. I welcome my parents to my virtual classroom daily because they have invested in their scholars’ learning while learning at the same time. We opened our parents up to different learning platforms to optimize their scholar’s learning.
As an educator, I am always ready, willing and able to learn. It is imperative to have that mindset when the minds of young children are in your hands. We have to have grit to deal with the ever-changing educational world. I have learned that things will exactly be the same when it comes to education because we have been introduced to the world of blended learning. This means that being in a different state from your teacher can no longer be the reason why you are not in class on a particular day of school. Learning is fundamental and it can happen any and everywhere in this whole new world.