Everyone thinks we get the summers off, but the reality is that many students and teachers need to keep working over the summer. Completing a semester’s worth of work in four weeks is a daunting task that can quickly overwhelm what should also be a time for you to rest and recharge from the traditional school year. Setting some boundaries and prioritizing your own engagement and interest in the work (what can you explore or try out?), along with your students’ engagement (what gets them interacting with you and the class?) will help make this summer successful!

Here are a few things I thought about that, maybe, will spark something for you too!

Schedule Yourself

• Set a specific time to start and to stop working each day. Honor yourself and your time by getting it done each day during that window and stopping on time.

• Students will know when to expect their work to be graded each day so that they can progress.

• I used to water my plants each day when I finished grading, it forced me to walk away from the computer and being outside helped me shift out of “work mode.”

Get to Know Your Students and Let Them Know You Too

• Include a “Getting to know you” question for your students at least once a week in your announcements. Be sure to reply personally and individually to each one of your students’ responses. It feels like one more thing to do, but once you start I promise that those conversations in replies will become one of your favorite parts of the day!

• Include (SCHOOL APPROPRIATE) info about yourself in your announcements. You want them to know you are a real person! It’s easy for them to ignore someone whom they don’t know or care about, but if you are a real engaging person, then they are more likely to log on and work for you.

• My most popular announcement this Spring was my National Pet Day Announcement with pictures of my dogs greeting my students above the content for that day. So many students replied to that and continued to message and ask about the dogs! One student even uploaded pictures of his cats and introduced me to them. Previously, he only replied to announcements occasionally, but after that, he replied almost daily. Dogs drive engagement?!?! I will be introducing them earlier next semester!

Work on Accessibility

• Announcements Accessibility Skills: If it fits in your regular work schedule each, day consider working on your Announcement Accessibility skills. I consider this an investment – stuff you “fix” and Save now means it’s still fixed when you use it again next Semester.

• Alt Text: Add Alt Text to your images as you go, when you save the HTML Code it will also save the Alt Text. For teaching images include brief descriptions that emphasize the content you are trying to teach with the picture. For other images you could just mark them as decorative, but it’s also fun to leave funny descriptions in the alt text. For example, if I use a picture of my dogs, I often will describe how incredibly goofy looking they are or how happy and proud they are of the students’ hard work. I think of them as little Alt Text “Easter Eggs” for the students.

• Learn to Edit Captions: Yuja does a good job of AutoCaptioning but sometimes it makes mistakes. If you plan to use the video again it’s worth it to make sure the captions are accurate. Play around with editing captions in Yuja. Check out the directions for this! Personally, I use ScreenPal for Screencasting and Video Editing. I just find it easier to use and Editing Captions is easy. I am now using “Open Captions” that make the Captions permanent every time the video is played. Save your videos as MP4’s in a file on your computer, so you can upload to Yuja and get permanent Embeds from there. Also, if your kid spills water on your laptop, you still have all your work!

Have a great summer session!