Berks Catholic High School was in a good position to transition to on-line learning when schools were shut down several weeks ago.
Still, some adjustments had to be made.
“About four years ago our school went one-to-one with I-pads,” said Alice Einolf, the Principal at Berks Catholic. “We are using Canvas as our student information system. So while we did have the infra-structure and the background in place we were not teaching on-line and so we did have to move forward in a very different way.”
When technology comes into play it seems like kids are better able to adapt to its use than say, us folks that can remember it not being so prevalent. It’s just the way it is.
“One of the things we did right after we were quarantined was to get our teachers some professional development,” Einolf said. “People are all at different places with their internet and their teaching abilities and their ability to use on-line but we were blessed to be able to provide some individual development for our teachers so that they were prepared and ready to go and had video conferencing so they could use software things like Doceri, an interactive white board that they could put on line.”
Social media has come into play in a big way during the shutdown as well.
“We really wanted to have a high social media presence to let people know what we are doing. Bill Hess is our Assistant Principal and Athletic Director and he loves the sports and he has been doing a wonderful job, especially for our seniors who—my heart aches for them. They need to be recognized a little bit differently this year.”
Einolf says that a few days ago the school’s coaches had senior night. They went to the seniors’ homes and dropped off flowers or gifts. The athletes also got pictures taken—safely–with their parents just as they would have on the court or on the field.
