13 minutes into my daughter's virtual 1st grade. We are still working on everyone muting and unmuting themselves effectively. Going to livetweet today's session to give folks a view into what this looks like...

As the teacher goes one by one calling on students to say their favorite animal (7 min for 16 kids), intense fidgeting and easy disengagement. Kiddo runs off camera, I remind her to stay on camera.

The teacher asks students to write a sentence. Kiddo is distracted when this occurs so doesn't know what's happening. She raises her hand to speak. But it's MS Teams which only shows 9 video tiles, so teacher can't see everyone and thus can't see kiddo's raised hand

One of the children comes off mute with music playing. For 30 seconds there is no way for other audio, like teacher instructions, to break through. Class is paralyzed until the song ends.

The teacher says it's time for dance break and sends a link via chat. Kiddo gets my help to understand where chat is. Link goes to an autoplay video with no audio, you'd need to be able to understand you need to click unmute. We get there, music plays with half hearted wiggles

All throughout this time kiddo is flopping on bed, on the ground. Continuous gentle reminders to stay on camera tho she can be where she wants. She takes laptop into bed so she can lay down with it

About 50% of the time there is background noise--crying babies, televisions, other conversations--as some kids stay unmuted and are yet to mute themselves. It is challenging to concentrate on what the teacher says. She spends 2 minutes exhorting the one child do mute their screen

The teacher is splitting kids into two groups. Kiddo gets her assigned group. Teacher is giving instructions on how to leave the MS Teams video meeting and join their respective new video meetings. Instructions repeated twice. Kiddo is flipping windows, in part our of boredom

A parent intervenes, informs teacher that the new group video meetings are locked. The teacher begins to troubleshoot in real time, but cannot figure out how to unlock it. More folks re-show up into meeting repeating the problem. Teacher dispenses with small groups for the day

Teacher decides to describe the instructions and schedule for small groups anyway. Useful for parents in attendance, can't imagine kiddo is absorbing this. Teacher is screen sharing both her video of kids plus slides. Everything is very small. Lots of text for early readers

Kiddo is paying intense attention to the screen. Good! Then I hear a system alert sound. Turns out kiddo had opened MS Paint and is trying to draw pictures. "I can still listen while I do this!" We have discovered multitasking

A parent chimes in that he is very frustrated by the amount of information teacher is giving, for 1st graders and for non tech savvy parents like himself. "My kid is looking at me and I don't know what to do." Teacher notes she just learned these platforms *last week*

More parents now chiming in with recommendations on how to avoid double screensharing of the live video by the teachers, which is confusing the kiddos since they see a window that looks like their manipulable window but is just a video

And it's break time. Teacher says to come back at 9:55. Kiddo doesn't tell time yet. Teacher says they'll begin calling folks back, so this works as long as kiddo stays in earshot

"Daddy I'm doing awful." I reassure her she's doing great and everything is new and hard. This is going to do wonders for kids' confidence and love of learning.

We are back. Teacher is telling kiddos which "special" session they have each day of the week. We learn that Wednesdays are entirely via app, ie no live instruction or interaction. That might actually be easier, to be honest

Kiddo keeps flipping to other windows. When MS Teams is in the background, the teacher's instructions relating to her slides becomes impossible to follow. I help her flip back. Soon another window has been opened due to an errant click. It is constant flipping back.

Just spent 10 minutes convincing kiddo to stay on camera, including several minutes coaxing her out from under her bed. She has missed instructions and is lost. I encourage her to unmute and ask her teacher

We are drawing our favorite animal and showing it to the screen 2. This is working well enough. Although half the kids appear to be off screen at any given time as we go through each sharing

The teacher is guiding kids through the Canvas platform. The click depth to get to content is... a lot. Many buttons and text. Several repetitions of instructions. A parent chimes in to ask for help

If kiddo is on a different window of the content than the teacher, it's like being in the wilderness. She clicks a video because of course! It looks interesting. She is totally out of sync with class. Teacher calls on her, she can't stop the video to respond. Teacher moves on

We attempt a quiz via Canvas that the teacher is walking through. Now the anxiety of answering questions mixes with lack of computer interface experience for full awesome

And we are at break. MS Paint is back on. We'll, at least there's a positive that she's getting into her computer

About to start virtual 1st grade afternoon. The day is two 2.5 hr blocks with a 1.5 hour lunch break. It therefore makes physical activity during that break very important. So, we live 2 blocks from the school and decide to head over...

Of course everyone else in the neighborhood has the same idea. The playground is busy--not a full school busy, but enough that clearly there won't be any social distance. Most are thankfully masked. But even if schooling is remote, exercise and play remain very in-person...

So far so good. We found the right session on MS Teams, which allows multiple video meetings to run with very little visually to differentiate them for kiddos. 10 min later, everyone is there that need a to be

Added challenge: this is a bilingual 1st grade. Afternoon is entirely in Spanish. Thankfully I am proficient enough to get it mostly, although I wonder how others may be faring. Certainly the ESL families must have felt challenged this morning, I hope this is a reprieve

One real issue here is hand-raising. It is very challenging to get timely individual attention when muted. In a classroom, the result is usually kids talking and being hushed. In virtual school, it just means kiddo feels totally ignored and frustrated

The teacher is giving instructions to write out a math equation on paper. The kids are supposed to hold their papers up to the screen for the teacher to check. There is a lot of cross chatter and no real direction for many minutes

The teacher keeps screen sharing inexplicably to show one persons video feed. I think it's an artifact of her trying to screen share slides, but the effect is disorienting

I have relaxed the rule of staying on camera. Kiddo is regularly flopping around the room. I am trying to help guide her attention back to the screen but there's not a lot for her to pay attention to, especially in a her second language

Teacher has asked students to write down 2+3= with the answer. Each kid is taking turns. We have spent 30 minutes on this. Kiddo gets frustrated because she writes the wrong answer. Teacher has no ability to pay attention to her frustration as she runs off camera.

Kiddo is now trying to leave her room. She is pretty checked out. We've made it to 1:30, not sure how we get to 3p. There is more discussion of how subgroups are supposed to switch between on screen instruction and independent work. It's in fast Spanish that I'm not getting fully

A short break arrives. Really not sure if we will return after the break given the mix of boredom and frustration that pervades this experience presently

One parent is translating to English for those of us who don't speak Spanish so well. There is a change in plans tomorrow. This seems important to convey direct to parents via email, rather than in class

Now we are reading a book together. Kids are taking turns reading. Kiddo is out of attention, but at least for others this seems to be engaging and working as planned

Movement break is another dance video, this one in Spanish. Instead of dancing, kiddo watches it dreamily--the ease of television! As a result, this is the stillest she's been all afternoon, despite the intended effect

Kiddo finds the power button, screen goes dark. We restart the computer and log back in. Suddenly lots of button pushing. Computers make funny sounds when you mash the keyboard

One issue is that the Canvas screen that teacher is sharing does not look like the Canvas screen that students see. This causes considerable confusion as folks attempt to repeat instructions

As instruction returns to giving technology and schedule instructions, I allow MS Paint to get used so kiddo remains quiet while I listen in

Last 20 minutes of the day are pre recorded video. We can watch at anytime--so we are done done done now. Kiddo unmuted, says bye, closes screen.

Chaser: "I wanna play on my tablet."

Kiddo goes downstairs. I shut myself in the bathroom just to have a minute to myself to breathe deeply and try to remove tension from my jaw, shoulders. Even if this gets better how many days/weeks before it does?

Hearing kiddo say "I'm the worst kid in the class" is the low-light of the day/week/month. I cheerily, repeatedly remind her of all the things she is doing well and empathize with her tough feelings. Really hope this period of life isnt central to her emerging personal narrative