August 9th 2020

During the coronavirus pandemic, the authorities of Crandon defined the institutional guidelines to assure the continuity of the courses. Therefore the teaching staff developed all kinds of strategies using several tools, creativity and imagination.

Since day one, the first «new school» (meaning the remote school) and then the «current school» (the hybrid) have been accompanied by news published on the institutional portal.​ Now, with different experiences that took place in Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary we present the first summary ​that shows how the personnel and the students of Instituto Crandon have faced the lockdown. In this article, we have compiled remote learning news published from March to May.

March

ClassDojo y campus (original article in Spanish). ClassDojo was the platform chosen for Early Childhood and Primary. The tool, developed in San Francisco (California), connects school teachers, students and families through communication features. In Secondary, the teachers continued working with Moodle, a well known platform among educational organizations. Read more

Coronavirus and Distance Learning (original article in English). Home schooling is a big challenge for teachers, students and families. All of them are important actors in the remote learning system. Teachers have to adapt the lessons, students must deal with the changes, and parents have to mix their children’s schoolwork with their own job-related demands plus home obligations. Read more

April

Cierres con afecto: la experiencia de dos grupos de tercer año de Ciclo Básico (original article in Spanish). Viviana Farías, the pedagogical counsellor (POP, for its initials in Spanish) of two third grade groups, created a «virtual hug» to close each day. Read more

La enseñanza remota de emergencia: aportes en curso (original article in Spanish). Due to the coronavirus lockdown, a new scenario of remote learning started to develop worldwide. The system created in Crandon has been supported by Verónica Perosi, an Argentinian IT teacher. Read more

IT strategies and tools in the COVID-19 pandemic (original article in English). In Uruguay, lessons at schools were cancelled on March 16 and Instituto Crandon immediately developed remote courses. To assist the necessary changes, the IT staff has been working in several areas: Technical Support, Front Desk issues, the creation of an appropriate and innovative menu of digital resources and the training in new tools and methodologies. Read more

Conferencias de prensa con invitados sorpresa: una experiencia didáctica de la asignatura Biología en Secundaria (original article in Spanish). Federico Viana, a Secondary teacher of Biology, created video calling classes with special guests: Carlos Lineo (Swedish botanist), Linnéa Larsson (Crandon alumni), Lynn Margulis (American biologist) and the dermatologist Tekuida Lappiel. Read more

May

«Candombe Coronado»: música uruguaya para cuidarnos en tiempos de coronavirus (original article in Spanish). The music teachers of Early Childhood and Primary composed a song that invites us to beware of COVID-19. The lyrics, written specially for children, shows the importance of washing hands, staying safe and being kind. Read more

Primer simulacro virtual de exámenes internacionales de inglés en Secundaria (original article in Spanish). The last weekend of April the first virtual mock of international exams took place. All the tests, for 249 Secondary students, were on line. Read more

La generación de primer año de Secundaria participó de una instancia masiva de programación (original article in Spanish). The students of first Secondary grade participated in a hackathon. The massive programming meeting was organized by IT teachers with two purposes: to join the students in a virtual way and to work with Mumuki, a programming language. Read more

Ajustes metodológicos en las clases de Historia. La propuesta del Prof. Marcos Rey (original article in Spanish). Marcos Rey, History teacher in Secondary, shows his remote learning experience. He based his strategy on choosing the specific content that let him work on the analysis, comparison and text production. Read more

Formularios Moodle en el simulacro virtual de examen internacional de inglés: trabajo en equipo, adecuación e innovación (original article in Spanish). The English teachers Valeria Machines and Tamara Miguez developed Moodle forms for the virtual mock of international exams. The digital forms proposed by the teachers covered the different areas of the exams: use of language, listening, reading and writing skills. Read more

Módulos quincenales con actividades interdisciplinarias: el abordaje de sexto año de Primaria (original article in Spanish). The teachers of Primary sixth grade organized the school programme in bi-monthly modules. With an interdisciplinary perspective, they defined a wide schedule with specific proposals. Read more

Las primeras clases prácticas en línea de Economía Doméstica (original article in Spanish). Home Economics is one of Crandon’s signs of identity since its foundation in 1879. Due to the pandemic, the subject, that is part of the Secondary curriculum, was held in virtual format from a professional set that was assembled in one of the laboratories. Read more

Videos con ejercicios mentales en clase de Biología de segundo de Ciclo Básico (original article in Spanish). Lucía Do Santos, teacher of Biology in Ciclo Básico (Secondary), found in the flipped classroom methodology the way to approach the curriculum objectives. Read more

Química en casa: cromatografía y cristalización en tercer año de Ciclo Básico (original article in Spanish). Gabriela Meroni and Lucía Pastore are teachers of Chemistry in two groups of first Secondary grade. In this article, they show the way they managed the homogeneous systems of fractioning methods. Read more

Práctica de dilatación térmica en segundo año de Ciclo Básico: la casa como laboratorio (original article in Spanish). Thermal expansion is one of the contents of the Ciencias Físicas programme in second grade of Secondary. The topic is usually learnt at the Laboratory and the pandemic forced the teacher Nadia Pérez to look for new strategies. Read more

Digital Recipe Book of Third Grade Secondary (original article in English). The English teachers of 3rd grade of Secondary School (Ciclo Básico) implemented distance learning strategies that combined digital resources, video calling classes and non-presential activities. Read more