Showing posts with label Zoom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoom. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Reading Partnerships in Breakout Rooms

The primary way I use sharing screens on Zoom is in reading partnerships in breakout rooms. Students join their reading partner in a breakout room, and one student goes to getepic.com and shares their screen. Both students are then able to read a shared text together. Before we went to remote instruction, students would be able to share a book from my class library and sit side by side, or read a set of duplicate books that I had several copies of. This is no longer possible now that students do not have access to shared texts at home. Sharing their screens allows students to access shared texts online and read together like they did when we were in person. 

Now, I set up breakout rooms ahead of time with 2-3 students per breakout room, and send my second graders to their rooms with instructions to read together. They spend not more than a minute or two on Epic choosing a book, then take turns reading pages, and help each other with difficult words. I go from room to room, listening in and offering immediate feedback before I move on to the next group. I jot notes on each group like I would as if I was conducting my in-person reading groups, and eventually pull everyone back to the main session to debrief. My kids love to give "shoutouts" to their partner for reading well and helping them sound out words!

This is one of my students' favorite activities on Zoom. As soon as you can teach at least half the class to share their screens (remember, you only need one student in the partnership to be able to share their screen to get started!) you can begin using the free website getepic.com for reading partnerships online. 

Monday, January 4, 2021

Teaching Students to Share Their Screens on Zoom

Teaching your students to share their screen while on Zoom will open up so many possibilities for you and your class. Screen sharing can help you to troubleshoot for students, (e.g.,"Just share your screen with me!") in addition to opening up doors for activities students can do with one another in breakout rooms. 

It may take some time teaching your students how to do this, especially if your students are all on different types of devices (this is the boat I'm in). However, depending on the activity you're doing, you may only need one student in the group to know how to share their screen in the beginning.  I actually utilized my students as fellow teachers when teaching them to screen share! I'd ask, "Who else has a Chromebook? Help me walk the class through the process for sharing on a Chromebook."  Some of my students were better than I was at teaching each other how to share their screens on devices that I didn't have!

Here are some links on how to share your screen on several different devices.