Tips for distance learning

Why?

Ocean School’s crew system is designed for groups of students to use in the classroom context. The normal crew creation process requires that students work together on the same device, to set the stage for collaboration.

For the distance learning context, we recommend having each student make their own one-person crew. Don’t worry! You can still use the sharing feature in Google Docs to allow students to collaborate in documents.

Can I set up crews for my students?

This is a possibility, but we don’t recommend it. You should check what the privacy guidelines in your district permit. In many places, it’s not okay for teachers to know their students’ passwords. You could complete the sign-up process for them and ask them to change their passwords, but this could be frustrating. To save time and energy, ask your students to create one-person crews!

What should I do?

When you create your Ocean School class in the educator space, you can download all of the activities from your class dashboard. You can copy links to the media from the module guide and share them with your students using the LMS of your choice.

If you’re looking for content grouped by inquiry question, check out our four main modules. You can find the module trailers and descriptions of the content in our module guides.

When would you recommend using the Google Classroom integration?

Create an Ocean School class with Google Classroom integration if you want to give your students freedom to explore, and capture their learning along the way. Every time they open an activity from the platform, a corresponding assignment will appear in your Google Classroom.

Some parts of the Ocean School website require a fast internet connection. If access is a concern, you can choose resources from the Learn from home page.

No login is required, and the videos are hosted on YouTube so students can watch on phones and on slower internet connections.