During these days, when schools are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are experiencing an unprecedented shift towards the use of digital technologies to support all forms of remote learning.  We must endeavour to bring in innovative pedagogical approaches in our virtual classrooms to provide rich learning opportunities and consult educational entities for innovative ideas such as the European Schoolnet as outlined in this video (https://bit.ly/3cxMFZz).  The current situation has caught everyone off guard, and we have witnessed a myriad of teaching approaches to cater for the current scenario.

Reflecting on the diverse learning episodes I am witnessing these days, it is evident that all forms of social media have become a primary means of communication to bridge the work done at school and the home setting.  We have seen teachers avail themselves of synchronous communication channels to conduct lessons and others using asynchronous communication to reach their students and their parents.  We have experienced an exponential need to use digital technologies and quenching the thirst for good use is a challenge.  In my opinion harnessing of technology among adult educators can no longer be considered as the domain of the IT specialist or IT enthusiasts, but it is a must to offer a myriad learning experiences for our students.  In terms of student-technology ratio, Maltese schools are well equipped, as outlined in this online article (https://bit.ly/2z9YzKI), especially when considering that all Years 4, 5 and 6 students can avail themselves of tablets and other digital resources as part of the One Tablet Per Child Project.  During the school lockdown, the filtering on the school tables has been removed so students can access a wider range of educational resources.  This decision directly impacted on the average use of the school tablet during the day since students are using it more frequently.  Use of digital technologies in the teaching and learning process must offer opportunities where students can get immediate feedback through structured activities and offer content creation opportunities where they can unleash their creativity.  In this regard, the Directorate for Digital Literacy and Transversal Skills (https://digitalliteracy.skola.edu.mt/) is organising webinars focusing on innovative pedagogical approaches to address the creation of digital artefacts to foster a sustainable growth mindset, shifting from formal educational experiences to self-exploratory student led activities..  Needless to say that technology alone will not bring a shift towards active learning opportunities, but in the long run these training opportunities will foster innovative pedagogical approaches within a project-based learning approach.

To ensure this growth mindset within the teaching cohort entails long-term planning focusing on appropriate learning programmes specifically catering for the specific pedagogical needs stemming out from current experiences.  During this period we must analyse the needs brought forward by teachers and scaffold this to offer teachers ample opportunities to venture more in remote learning.  We have recently experienced an exponential use of Microsoft Teams for remote learning both in Primary and Secondary schools (follow this link https://teamsdemo.office.com/ for a quick demo).  In fact during the first weeks of the school lockdown various training sessions were being regularly held to help schools make the shift towards remote learning in the least possible time.  We have supported the use of Microsoft Teams on two different levels.  The school leadership team was guided how to set-up a Microsoft Team as a tool to communicate with the staff and teachers were supported to create a class team where they can share resources, create assignments and communicate with students.  Teachers were also granted the opportunity to attend training in digital tools, such as J2E (https://www.j2e.com/), that nurture 21^st century competences.  The J2E ecosystem empowers learners to take ownership of their own learning by creating digital artefacts which they also can publish these within the software ecosystem.  J2E also empower teachers to share different tasks with students and give feedback by creating a learning conversation. 

The Directorate for Digital Literacy and Transversal Skills has recently issued the Online and Distance Learning Toolkit for Primary Schools (bit.ly/maltatoolkit).  All educators are encouraged to consult this online publication and gain insights about online and distance leaning modalities. 

A short biography about James Callus, the author of this blog post.  James Callus is a Head of Department Digital Literacy within the Directorate for Digital Literacy and Transversal Skills and one of his main roles is to promote Digital Literacy in Primary State Schools.  Together with the school leadership team, he endeavours to empower educators to effectively use digital technologies in teaching and learning.  He is regularly involved in teacher training sessions, professional development meetings and digital literacy workshops.  Throughout the year he is actively involved in Digital Literacy Days, EU Code Week activities, Family Coding activities, Robotics, eTwinning, Coding and Computational Thinking workshops.