BUILDING SCHOOL COMMUNITY USING GOOGLE MEET
BY LINDSAY MALL
wanted to find a way to connect my students to the rest of the school despite our need to stay separate. How could we build school commu- nity and reach beyond our small group in the classroom to create moments as a school and mark both important moments and everyday ones together? I wanted to create a way for students to
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feel we were all together, even though we are using a virtual space. I thought, what if my class created a Google Meet and invited all the classes in the school to join. My VP loved this idea and so it began. Daily announce- ments on Google Meet. To start off, I surveyed the staff to see
what time worked best for everyone. Once survey results were gathered, we began the programming. I wanted to combine a tra- ditional announcement with technology to make it engaging for students. So that’s where we started, with the date, the cycle day and a quote. Now here’s where the fun began, and where you get to add a bit of personalization!
36 ETFO VOICE | SPRING 2021
s we embarked on this un- precedented year of masks, COVID-19 tests, restrictions and concerns about student and staff health and safety, I
CONNECTING OVER GOOGLE MEET “O CANADA”
Our daily announcements include different versions of “O Canada.” Since we are able to do our announcements in a video format, we get to choose different versions every day thanks to YouTube. Several times a week we will have a version that is not in English, cel- ebrating the diversity in our school and the diverse cultural makeup of Canada. We are also able to highlight many of Canada’s In- digenous communities and celebrate their languages. The exciting part is that we have been doing this since September and haven’t had a repeat!
DAILY WEATHER REPORT
We wanted to set up our announcements like a newscast, so we decided we needed a weath- er report. For this portion of our announce- ments, I have a student check the weather forecast for the day and then read it to the others. This helps teachers and students pre- pare for recess and, in some cases, prepare for the next day (if there is a big snowstorm com- ing). For the students reading the forecast, there are many benefits. They get to practice their fluency and vocabulary. New weather
words and phrases come up (forecast, pre- cipitation, extreme weather alert), and the student in this role has to become familiar with them to present as a newscaster.
CELEBRATE THE LANGUAGES WITHIN OUR SCHOOL!
Our school has a French Immersion pro- gram, so after we do the quote of the day in English, we pass it over to one of our French classrooms and hear the quote done by a student in French. But that is only one way of doing it. As students become more in- volved you could challenge everyone to see how many languages are in your school, and students or teachers who feel comfortable could then translate the quote into another language they speak. This allows students to see their peers and other teachers in a differ- ent way, as experts in a language new to them. Instead of our ELL learners feeling like their first language isn’t important, this gives us a forum to celebrate them and honour the lan- guage they first learned.
EQUITY AND INCLUSION
First, make sure you seek out the land ac- knowledgement for your particular school.
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