GREENSBORO, N.C. — Guilford County Schools kicked off the fourth week of school with live remote instructions.
Teachers started interacting with students directly during virtual class sessions. Teachers and students were able to engage as they would during a normal classroom setting. However, due to privacy concerns, only the teacher's video feed was turned on for students, and interaction was restricted to text or voice discussion. Some teachers also did house calls to help students with the Canvas platform.
Teachers said their primary goal Tuesday was to get the students used to the live learning format which was rehearsed with recorded lessons over the past few weeks.
"There's a lot of preparation to get something going, to get it live," Brent Davis of Greensboro said.
Davis is a band teacher at Mendenhall Middle School who like many others at GCS conducted real-time live instructions from an empty classroom.
He said it's not just a new experience for the students, the teachers too are learning along the way.
"There's a lot of teachers right now who are like first-year teachers again because of that technological component, all the technology that's in there, and what we're doing is setting us back to that first year feeling of teaching when some things may be new," Davis said.
This would be the first time for live lessons at GCS since schools began on August 17. Statewide system failures got school districts off to a rough start during the first week.
"We're trying the best that we can but all they have to do is contact us and let us know when they have questions with their work as well," Davis said.
Recorded lessons will continue at GCS so students can access them at a later time.
As for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools district, live instructions began during the first week of school.
