You
have to get an upbeat personality for
virtual. So
be lively,  be fun, sing,
dance ,be silly.  And it doesn't mean you
have to you know dress up in a costume
and have, you know, special effects or
anything like that.
Although if you want to, go for it. Throw
confetti when they get an answer right.
You know, just be enthusiastic,
and enjoy what you're doing. And, you know, understand that for them,
you know... this may be, you know...
they're not getting a lot of personal connection.
Try to cultivate that even within the
classroom and have the students
collaborate together,
because they're not getting that right
now. They miss that. Using things
like the polling feature in Zoom. It's a
really simple
thing, but instead of you just sitting
there talking, you're getting them to
interact. You're getting them to engage.
And then you can have some really cool
discussions. You just have to find ways
to make it engaging,
so that they feel like they're actually
in a classroom. And that's what I've
been doing.  It's been a learning process,
you know. You figure stuff out after you
get it wrong the first time - -  like okay
maybe next time I'll do this.
Also to keep them engaged I use a lot of
puppets.
I use puppets to do lessons. They have, you know, they have favorite
puppets that they ask to see.
They're like , "Is is Timmy awake?" To engage
the students
in during these times,  it takes a
teacher's imagination
and exploration, finding out what you
could use to help
engage your students and make them
excited.
