Living in Georgia for the past 10 years has taught me many truths, such as the fact that Chick-fil-A is one of the best restaurants known to man. Or that Atlanta and traffic are synonyms like Georgia weather and unexpected.
But the most important truth is that snow only comes every few years-and a snow day is always a special occasion. For the snowstorm on December 8, I celebrated accordingly-by playing with my siblings in the piles of snow that we haven’t seen in two years. However with the Digital Learning Days during this past month, it was a lot harder to do that.
While I never had any technical difficulties with accessing the assignments on eClass, I was unpleasantly surprised by the time it took to complete all of the work for my classes. Though most of my assignments were relatively simple – from a sight-reading game, a statistics worksheet, an energy review booklet, AP Exam multiple choice questions, to making a short video in Spanish – I spent more time completing all of my work than the length of the average school day-8 hours!
However, even more, frustrating was the fact that these assignments were rarely discussed in class once school opened for the regular schedule. I understand that with unexpected inclement weather, it is hard for teachers to prepare assignments in time to post it on eClass, but on a snow day, it is discouraging to know that the only thing in the way of enjoying the snow outside is busywork assignments that are unrelated to the source material learned in class.
Nevertheless, in the Digital Learning Days that we have had this January, I was able to watch my brother, who is in kindergarten, with his own assignments on eClass, where I saw him post about his favorite foods. For being 6 years old, my brother was able to create a discussion post with little difficulty, and it is equally easy for him to access YouTube or to disable Chrome extensions.
With that in mind, Digital Learning Days were not how I preferred to spend a snow day, but for elementary-school kids like my brother, who have been exposed to tablets, smartphones, and the Internet from an earlier age, a day on eClasss may be unexpectedly appealing.
