Support For Remote Learning
In the spring of 2020, the Edfund received an urgent grant request from the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District to support the remote learning efforts necessitated by the pandemic. The Edfund responded with a grant of $50,743, one of its largest one-time grants to date, to support a variety of technology and software platforms providing teachers and students new tools needed for a remote effort. These various technology programs (highlighted below) benefited students at all grade levels.
Zoom Licenses: With this grant, the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District was able to purchase large-group Zoom licenses for the delivery of online learning across multiple grade levels. The principal of the HWRHS, Eric Tracy states, “Zoom technology has been instrumental for allowing us to make consistent connections between our students, staff and parents. The support of the Edfund made the transition almost seamless so that we could immediately shift to a completely new way of thinking about teaching, learning, community connections, and social emotional health.”
Lexia is an online program that identifies and monitors students’ key reading and language skills, and provides actionable data for instructional planning.
Dreambox provides math software solutions for elementary and middle school learners complementing the existing math curriculum and providing more personalized learning experiences. Carolyn Shediac, Principal of the Winthrop Elementary School states, “Technology tools have become an integral component of our blended learning model in Hamilton Wenham. At the elementary level, Lexia and Dreambox provide students with opportunities to work on skills based on their individual needs, while providing their teachers with additional data to target instruction based on student need.”
Edpuzzle is a program that designs and develops online video customization and sharing platforms for teachers and students to enable them to find, upload, crop, and customize videos for their learning purposes.
Screencastify makes it easy to record, edit, and share videos of your computer screen. Teachers can record themselves to create a flipped classroom, explain difficult concepts, recap the day’s main objectives, demonstrate an idea, or give students audio or video feedback on their work. Students can use Screencastify to demonstrate what they’ve learned or how they solved a problem, give presentations, catch up their absent peers, make and read e-books, or practice reading aloud in a foreign-language class.
BrainPOP offers educational websites to students in grades K-12 with over 1,000 short animated movies, along with quizzes and related materials, covering a wide array of content areas. In the HWRSD, BrainPOP has been used particularly in science because of its short, high-interest, animated videos that easily explain a number of complicated topics.
Read Naturally is a program with research-based reading interventions that help struggling and developing readers improve their literacy skills and become confident, independent readers. In our district, the program has been a valuable tool for providing independent practice in larger reading groups or in the remote environment for those who need reading support.
Alan Taupier, Director of Information Technology states, “When the pandemic closed in and in-person learning ended, the District’s ability to respond to this sudden teaching and learning shift would have been greatly hampered without the Edfund’s generosity. With this trusted source of funding, the District began curating online services to support remote learning, allowing the Leadership team and faculty to concentrate on our new pedagogy instead of stitching together an un-tested potpourri of free apps and worksheets.”
Lead Applicant(s):
Hamilton Wenham Regional School District
Students served:
All K-12 HWRSD Students
Purpose:
To better deliver remote learning in a new environment.
Advantage granted:
Technology and software tools to support and enhance a remote learning and teaching model.
