Nation’s education leaders to convene virtually to discuss challenges and create a sense of continuity for America’s learners

Beginning April 2nd, the Learning Counsel is hosting a series of eight emergency national virtual discussions, featuring many of our nation’s top experts in the areas of virtual learning and digital transition. Registration is free to educators.

According to LeiLani Cauthen, CEO and Publisher at the Learning Counsel, “March 11th marked our first day of the sharply different reality in America. On March 18th, we surveyed our members and had 17,075 responses in under four hours. 50 percent of the respondents volunteered to be on virtual discussions. While we have been working feverishly to schedule some of those as anchor speakers, we are constantly on calls with districts who are seeking advice and especially, candor. The Learning Counsel has marshalled our EduJedi Leadership Society to answer concerns ripped from the conversations we’re already having. These emergency national virtual discussions will be an opportunity for schools to confront the onus challenges we are seeing as we create an instantaneous system of virtual learning in America. Let’s get this thing done for our Nation’s learners. Please Register right now and pass it on!”

Emergency National Virtual Discussion Schedules

Zero Hour for Digital – Let’s Discuss

Thursday, April 2 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

What’s the #1 Priority right now? What are the challenges right now to create any sense of continuity for students and parents? Do we split our teachers into some building digital lessons out and some managing students remotely? What if students don’t have devices but probably parents do and maybe mobile phones? What if we’re out for the rest of this school year? What about special needs or inequities?

Online Resources Discussion – What sites, apps or systems?

Fri. April 3 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

Let’s share ideas for what to use for what from many of the people who really know what’s out there. Learning Counsel research and media is at the center of announcements coming in from thousands of companies for free or special plans. Also discuss how to streamline into most important resources, set policies for time blocks for teachers and student work, and deploy needed help and access.

Determining Short-term versus Longer-term Online Learning Strategies

Tues. April 7 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

How long will you be out? Should you try to continue as usual or jump over to just continuing any learning? What are pros and cons of different strategies? Should you anchor your strategy around what students need or what you can actually pull off based on parent involvement, devices, teacher readiness and the type of digital resources you have or could get quickly?

Determining Right Plans Based on Inventory of Digital Resources

Weds. April 8 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

The best plan for quickly moving to virtual learning may leave many “holes” in a full curriculum. Taking rapid inventory and how to think about what you have to do right now from initial start up to fully scaled plans – including what to not do because it won’t work.

Utilizing Teachers Remotely

Thurs. April 9 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

Using teachers remotely has different decisions you need to make right now. Are they trained at all to work remotely? Are you going to use all of them or create cohorts to do various specific things? It depends on your plan of operations in virtual learning. This might be an opportunity to retrain some and use others differently than you might have thought.

Enabling Personalized Workflow Learning

Fri. April 10 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

There are two levels of discussion in this topic, the first is immediate reasonable implementation for anything that will help students self-navigate in curated libraries of materials for project work, courseware and the like. The other is true Personalized Workflow Learning, a.k.a. Uberization, that is the penultimate in transitioning to digital that intersects teachers as needed for the best in personalization and makes the most of either remote or on-campus and whatever blend of both fits. Most districts need the latter right now so they aren’t having schedule clashes and tripping over the problems of time and distance. What to start with now, what subjects are easier to implement than others.

Leadership Briefing on Becoming a Fully Blended Institution: Getting to On-campus and/or Online Instant Flexibility

Tues. April 14 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

Why is it so hard to just flip over to virtual learning instantly? Peel back the layers of why and what that means for what you can do right now to make it easier in the future. Those who’ve gone before to get the systems, the interoperability, and the digital resources and courseware will share pitfalls and wins.

Pandemic Scramble – CIO Tips

Weds. April 15 – 11:00am PDT/12:00pm MDT/1:00pm CDT/2:00pm EDT

CIOs and the instructional tech teams are all working double overtime nationwide, mostly from home. Some of the questions many are having to answer right now include equity of access issues, getting enough content rapidly integrated, and more. What do some of the bright stars say about what to do and how to prioritize?

Additional Event Details

For additional details on each of the virtual discussions as well as a listing of presenters and their qualifications, attendees can visit the Virtual Events tab on the Learning Counsel website.

About the Learning Counsel

The Learning Counsel is a research institute and news media hub with 215,000 readers that provides context for schools in digital transition from a deep understanding of tech user experience, systems and organization. Their mission-based organization was the first to develop a thesis of education’s future based on technology’s evolution — and start helping schools advance systematically.