Admit it or not, this Covid-19 situation has overhauled the concept of learning and working in daily life. Most of the social economic activities  are carried out remotely on your home desktop or laptop with or without a VPN connection. School boards finally released and started to implement their online learning by providing devices and learning resources, of course, homework to students who have been wandering around for over a month.

Parents thought it is a relief to them at least for a few hours. In contrast, it has brought more challenges than expected for the younger school kids if they are not tech savvy. How to manage the new setting for the family since home now has become a working station, a classroom, an indoor gym besides its traditional functionality.

First of all, we need a fast internet connection and multiple amplifiers to make sure all the corners are covered by the signal. If not, change your plan from 150 MBPS to 1G, and not to forget to negotiate your plan price with the provider.

Second, additional devices depending on the number of residents in your house, a desktop, a laptop, two tablets and two smart phones are essential for a regular sized Canadian household. School boards have started giving out devices to families, make sure to apply one if you need extra.

Besides, you need a quiet study for parents who are doing conference calls and brainstorming, however, this is just an ideal scenario, everyone understands how this will turn out with two kids and one dog in the house.

No matter what system the school is using for keeping students engaged, you will need a student username and password to log in the account. You can download the application or access from a web browser, follow the instructions from schools, they will let you know which way is most stable and reliable. The system is normally composed of

1. A notification center, which allows the teacher to post important notes, maybe homework, maybe learning module information,
2. A learning resource sharing folder or section, the student can click in and find the lesson plan or learning activities,
3. A homework or assessment section which includes the daily homework and online tests so the teacher and students can evaluate the learning outcome.
4. Next one will be the social elements, It can be a chat board or discussion forum on different topics.
5. Some of the teachers will run office hours on line or a video call to address the problems or key takeaways, parents need to pay attention to the notification center to keep the students in touch with the teachers.

Let’s assume you have tackled the technical problem, how about the core part, the real learning? Parents have realized that without teacher’s support they are walking through a black hole. Young kids need parents’ company to go through the learning resources, which requires patience from the adults. Most importantly, we suggest to limit the screen time down to below 2 hours as the kids get bored and lose their concentration easily. Parents are encouraged to help kids connect with the teacher or ask questions on how to find more supporting online resources.

Although we have all the support now with the technology, we should never forget that the learning happens beyond a computer, students gain information and knowledge from daily life, nature through playing, touching, and exploring. Their curiosity raises questions, which leads to seeking  answer from books, from their teachers, from their parents.

KNiTO Studio assists teachers create ePUB3 books full of interactive features and export them to KNiTO Store  for free. Students and parents can open their ebooks on their smartphones, tablets or computer and elearn anytime anywhere. KNiTO is calling out all teachers to work together to  publish their online teaching no matter how small or large into a book to keep students remain engaged and connected.