My Foray into creating a Virtual Classroom

Why a Virtual Classroom? 

I was inspired to begin a Virtual Classroom by a friend who is also a teacher.  I thought it looked cute.  While I am not beginning the year full-time virtual teaching, we all know that we may end up doing that.  My district is doing A/B/C days, so I will half of my class everyday.  The other half will be doing virtual assignments from home on the days they are not in school.  I plan to dip my toe in at the beginning of the year.  

This is what I have so far:  

My Plan

I plan to post assignments on the whiteboard for the day.  I will have video links for the books on the bookcases.  I have links on the pictures of the district, school, and my class website.  I will post other links on the bulletin board.  I may link anything for science with the plant.  I will link a video of me explaining the directions for the day or week to my bitmoji.  I used Google Slides and will give my link to the students and just update the assignments and videos each week.  I learned a lot by searching Youtube videos.  I am including my top take-aways below.  

Take-Aways

1. Create a background that the objects will be stationary and help the students to find objects better that are linked.  The way you do this to Download a slide as a JPEG or PNG.  Below you can see what I am keeping as a background below...I choose to not keep the stool because I may change to a more comfy chair or no stool sometimes.  

2.  Use Bitmoji Chrome extension on Bitmoji.com.  Scroll to the bottom to add the extension.  

3.  You can make a virtual classroom on Google Slides or Powerpoint.  

4.  Save a draft of your virtual classroom to have different setups....easy to make and fix mistakes before you make a Classroom for your students to view.  

5.  Use a photo editor like: https://www8.lunapic.com/editor/  to flatten a picture of a rug using Perspective under Adjust or do other edits.  

6. Use the word transparent when searching for photos: stool transparent.  

7.  Have Fun and get your creative juices flowing!

Final Thoughts

I obviously don't have all the answers and have decided to keep it simple at first.  I will say it was fun and I can see this as a great way to keep students engaged even at home.