Humanizing eLearning is about bringing personalizing and community building activities into the virtual classroom.
eLearning can be very isolating and thus demotivating.
Students who develop a sense of belonging and purpose will be more liking to take more ownership in the learning process.
They need to know that the teacher values each student and the learning activities.
Introductions
Even if all the students know you and each other, give them a chance to reconnect. Use a Google Classroom (or other LMS) discussion board.
Personal question (not too deep)
Ex. What is something you did over the recent break?
Ex. What is your biggest concern about this course?
Share a picture or video
Ex. What does your elearning space look like? Share a video or picture.
Ex. Who is your learning support partner? Share a picture or video.
Encourage connections. As the teacher, ask questions. Encourage students to ask questions about each other's responses.
Class Virtual Gathering
Find a time when you can create an open gathering for your classroom. Set aside a half hour for a Hangout, Teams, or Zoom gathering. Facilitate a conversation for review of previous concepts or finding out what students already know about a topic. Don't worry if only a couple kids show up. It's worth it for them.
Introducing Activities
Using a video to introduce an activity gives students a sense of purpose about what they are supposed to do. It also continues to remind students that the teacher is a real human who cares about the learning behind the activity.
Give an overview
Create Relevance
Save details for text resources
Check In
Take time to email or call individual students who may be struggling or who have done excellent work. Many students will appreciate your time and effort.
One Place
Keep all of your resources for one activity in the same place. Consider a Google Doc with links to different resources. You can update the Doc as you add new activities or resources. Send out one communication with the link to the Doc.
Have Fun!
Create a weekly theme, dress in a costume, or tell a dad joke. Don't let it get in the way of the learning, but make it interesting.
Method
Giving students options allows them to make the learning their own. Students could choose the method for how they show their learning. Allow writers to write, builders to build, coders to code, creators to create. If you don't know how a method will work with your expectations, ask the student. It will probably be an enlightening conversation.
Content
Find many different sources of information for your students and encourage them to choose something that sparks their interest. Even better, spend some time allowing students to find resources for each other. Curate a list of resources with links using a shared class Google Doc.
Relevance
Create questions and activities that encourage students to make connections to their lives. Once they have made the connection, challenge the students to think how others are impacted.