MACON, Ga. — During the COVID-19 school closures, teachers went from using technology as a tool to completely depending on it for instruction from home.
"The first maybe day or week, all the teachers were struggling a little bit and then you can look back now and see the progression we had, and how much better we got," Saladrigas said.
Bibb County's Southwest High School History teacher Patrick Saladrigas and Warner Robins High English teacher Kristin Hanlin were familiar with technology in the classroom before COVID-19.
They say the biggest challenge this spring was the lack of face to face contact with students.
"Teachers have to click a certain set of buttons to get something done and students have to do a whole other thing. So, it's really just trying to be able to show them what to get done because the technology literacy is really important but a lot of students aren't as literate with technology and computers as you'd expect," Hanlin said.
Middle Georgia State Education Professor Tammy Haislip says their aspiring teachers experienced remote learning as college students themselves and had to create their own remote lesson plans online.
"I believe that this is going to be a part of every teacher training course that comes along after this. We're going to have to make sure that our students leave us with more than content knowledge, but the skills to be able to meet students in diverse learning environments," Haislip said.
In light of this pandemic, Hanlin and Saladrigas both said it's important that every student have the technology they need to learn.
The quicker they learn how to use computers, the smoother this transition will be if it happens again.
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