Virtual School Feedback and Survey Results

It seems like so long ago that AIS-R was closed and we experienced virtual school for the first time.  At AIS-R we remain vigilant in our efforts to keep the spread of infection at a minimum while at the same time preparing ourselves in case there is another sudden closure.  Part of that preparedness has involved soliciting feedback from teachers, students and parents on our virtual school experience and the recent online survey.  This information has helped us plan better for possible, however unlikely, closure.

I wanted to share the results of this survey and highlight some of the actions we are taking to address what appear to be some of the key issues.

Here is a summary of the survey results:

For the other two questions, "What worked well?" and "What could be improved?", here are the five top responses:

These results support the many anecdotal comments we received from teachers, students and parents via email.  Here is what we are doing and planning to do as a result:

• Blackboard was easy to use but did not allow for easy communication between students and teachers and submitting assignments was a challenge. 
  • So we are investigating an alternative to Blackboard, called Moodle.  Some teachers are trying it out and some of your children may be involved in using it in their classes.
  • We are also creating a parent course in Moodle which will involve parents more in the virtual school experience and offer help and training in using virtual school platforms and also a forum for questions and answers
• Teachers are being encouraged to use Blackboard during school time to keep students accustomed to using the virtual school tools so it will be familiar in the event of another closure.
• We are investigating using Google Docs for students.
  • This would allow students and teachers to share documents, lessons and assignments online without needing to post them on Blackboard, downloading and uploading or emailing.
  • Documents and lessons are simply online in Google Docs and shared with the class or shared individually.
• We are reviewing our various communication avenues and trying to refine their use both now and in the event of a closure.
• Teachers have learned a great deal through our last virtual school experience about setting deadlines and giving time for learning and completing assignments at home. 
  • In the event of another closure, lessons and assignments will be better paced and more time given
  • Teachers will coordinate with grade level colleagues to better balance due dates and workload
  • We are looking into a better calendar tool to communicate due dates for assignments

While we do not expect any further closures due to H1N1, we are nevertheless planning for that contingency.  We want to take this opportunity to thank all parents who sent feedback about Virtual School and participated in the survey.  Your feedback is extremely valuable to us in our continued efforts to improve student learning at AIS-R.  As always, please feel free to contact me if you have an questions or suggestions.

Michael McGlade
Technology Director
American International School Riyadh
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
Survey Results Complete	Virtual School survey results complete	74 Kb