Dealing With The Pandemic - Online Education

https://live.clickto.camp/user is an online software that is very similar to zoom but incorporates activities such as a drawing board, polls and sharing links.

Due to COVID19, students weren't able to attend school from March until recently and summer camps were cancelled. The curriculum had to be minimized and in some cases discontinued. Private schools resumed to online teaching for the higher grades, but public education systems did not, leaving students to complete the final assignments given to them in order to receive a grade for each course.

At the end of June I took part of a new youth program where I was a counsellor to 14 campers on a virtual camp. It was a week long camp that would start 9am and end at 2pm. The age groups ranged from grade 1-3, 4-5 and 6-7. As the counsellor, I was the host and therefore in control of ClickToCamp. There was an option to pin the videos of the campers, create polls or questions of truth or dare, share my screen or links to videos as well as a drawing board where my campers and I would normally play hangman. Everyday, my group would have a different schedule where there was an activity such as "sports" or "arts and crafts". I would move my entire group from one online room to another where a specialist (similar to a gym teacher) was ready to present a sports related game. For example, there was a wheel created where every camper in their turn got to spin it and the first one to complete the task (10 jumping jacks, 5 burpees or 15 second plank) won points.

An example of a game that I played online was that I would put everyones camera on the main screen and I would call out different household objects that the campers would have to go and find and then prove to the rest of the group that they found it. The ones who found the objects first won.

                                   

I also started off each day with a song that I played in the background for only a few seconds and the group had to guess the name of it. The ones to guess correctly received points!

The best part about this program was seeing how happy the campers were to wake up early and go on ClickToCamp just to see me and the other kids. They were lacking the social aspect of school and creating new friendships, so this program was a great benefit to their time in quarantine.

Danielle@NU