Columbia County schools use virtual learning in a new way
COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - All of our local school districts had to adapt to virtual learning at some point in the pandemic.
While that’s behind us, Columbia County is using virtual learning in a different way this year.
The school district has a couple of planned half virtual days with the first coming up on September 2.
The goal is to teach students technology skills while giving them a chance to collaborate with others in a flexible setting.
For Columbia County’s digital day, this is how the teachers and the students will be in school, using this day to enhance students’ digital skills.
“The digital environment is not going anywhere and in order to prepare our students well, we want to make sure that they have the same opportunities as kids across the nation have,” said Columbia County Associate Superintendent, Michele Sherman.
Sherman says Columbia County isn’t the first district to do this, but she hopes having this day will allow students to be ready if a quick change happens.
“We need to be well prepared to transition to various learning types. You never know what can hit, we can have a storm that could knock out a school for days, just different things can come about,” she said.
On top of being prepared for the worst, they’re also preparing students past grades K through 12, which are becoming more and more digital.
“We know that our colleges had more digital learning, almost any workplace they had, has a digital and a virtual component to the work environment,” said Sherman.
The day will be set up as a half-day, with 30 minutes of digital instruction in each class.
Half of the classes will be set time periods to meet digitally. The other half is asynchronous.
“Which means they’ll be able to do it at any time as long as that work is complete prior to them coming back to school. So hopefully the kids are going to enjoy a flexible learning environment for the day,” said Sherman.
Tech problems may be an issue as well and the county says teachers will be recording their lessons and students will have three days from when school gets back to get that work done.
If you don’t have access to computers at home, reach out to your kid’s school.
They do have options for you to rent laptops and other equipment.
For more information, visit the Columbia County School District’s website.
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