Distance learning was like waking up and finding yourself strapped to a roller coaster at the top of the crest, ready to fall. Unfortunately, I have a fear of heights. It was unexpected, and you’re unsure how it’s going to go, with many high highs and low lows. It’s super fast and your hair is in your face and ahhhhhh.

Doing things online gave me a newfound admiration of people who do online school because they have work and/or a kid to take care of during the day. They are superhuman. Seriously. Because I was not able to do it. I got super down, unmotivated, and struggled to care about my academics. I know this doesn’t end now, and that the fall semester will likely look much like this one. I hope I will be more prepared for that, awake and strapped in to the roller coaster.

“The strategy/ approach that didn’t work for me was not having much communication if at all and that made me lose even more motivation because I didn’t feel like it was really necessary. I also feel like only posting answers and not explaining work also made me felt like I had to learn everything by myself and do additional research to have the knowledge on what to do.” -Kelly Pham

Some people might have liked the independence, but I actually hated the lack of communication during online learning. We might be distant physically but I didn’t want to be distant emotionally. For this reason I wish we had more synchronous class meetings. It made me sad how barely anyone went on towards the end.

“Having virtual class meetings and learning through them definitely did not work for me. It was awkward. Many students did not attend the meetings, and only a handful of the students that did attend actually had their video cameras on and talked.”-Kylie Chu

” I think being able to go into zoom calls with my teacher helped me the most. I was able to actively ask them, and other peers questions, while having them explain it to me.” -Cynthia Thai

I also know that some people liked distance learning because it gave them more time to live their life outside of school, but personally I need the structure of school to thrive. I think I miss my friends too much. Or just anyone besides my family. I love them but I need a break after spending every minute of the past 3 months with them.

“Personally, being online has worked well for me and I have enjoyed the free time.” -Skylar Volz

I appreciate how teachers came through and took time out of their day to figure out how to help us. Not all teachers bothered to do much, but some went above and beyond.I’m sure the situation was hard on them too but they really pushed through for us. Many found new websites or tried new pieces of technology for distance learning. For example, the playposit assignment was super cool. For math, a couple teachers created a whole YouTube playlist to help students across the country. However, some websites were absolutely not helpful or way too confusing or just unnecessary. The SQUID assignment didn’t make any sense to me.

It is going to be hard to learn new things without hands on experience for many classes such as science or arts. But for other subjects, it may be more helpful to review things we already know. If I was a teacher, I think a cool remixed assignment to give to students in distance would be to have them recreate or rewrite an old paper/article/blog/creation from a few years ago. It would be cool to see how you have grown (or shrunk) as a writer/creator from the beginning of high school to the end.

Speaking of the end of high school, my heart goes out to all the graduates. I don’t know how I’d feel if something like that was taken away from me. Hopefully I don’t have to find out. I know that many other things that make senior year so great will not exist next year though. Football games, dances, seeing your childhood friends for the last time. Hopefully the ride is over by then. I liked how staff came together to give seniors the best makeshift graduation they could though.

Most of all, I just hope there continues to be communication during this time. It feels like the district is making decisions without considering the students, or even some teachers, at all. The thing that will keep people together is effective communication, because it is now impossible to know what is going on in someones life when they are miles away from you. It’s like trying to shout to people on the ground from the back of the roller coaster cart.

I’m going to take 2 college courses at Golden West College that are entirely online this summer. Maybe I’ll get the hang of it and start liking online learning, but as of right now, I don’t think so. I want off this roller coaster.

(PS: I found the secret links and I LOVED U.N.I.T.Y.)