LINCOLN (SNR) – As schools across the nation switched to “remote,” “distance” or “virtual” learning models, in the Diocese of Lincoln, thousands of families made the adjustment, as well.
“We have over 600 teachers who have been tasked with becoming ‘online educators’ with no forewarning and no training,” said Sister Mary Kansier, M.S., director of the Education Technology Office for the Diocese of Lincoln. “They are the heroes.”
Those heroes, however, had great support from the dedicated members of the Education Technology Office.
Sister Mary shared details of the “new normal” with the Register by email March 20.
“Many school non-teacher staff have desktop computers, and need to work from home,” she explained. Her staff had to establish a temporary protocol that allows a school to loan on-hand laptops or tablet – not student iPads – for use at home, and access to their school files.
In addition, she said, many families either do not have a home computer, or have more than three children and one home computer. 
“For those families,” she said, “we are loaning a laptop or tablet. On one-day notice, my staff found a content filtering solution that will follow these devices home, Cisco Umbrella.”
They had a phone conference and in a matter of hours, network administrator Jason Garrett and network specialist Darren Furasek had it installed, configured and tested.
“When we had a follow up call with Cisco at 3:30, they were amazed at how much had been done already,” Sister Mary said. “They said they’d never had a customer figure things out so quickly. I have the best team!”
She noted that the loaned devices are not devices originally prepared to be take-home devices, like schools with 1:1 programs have – these devices have to be reconfigured from scratch before they could safely be loaned out. They also had to develop a support strategy for those devices that belong to the diocese.
In addition to the physical supplies, more of the staff have been working on an online platform for distance education.
Carrie Nielsen, mobile integration specialist, and Shane Whitford, training specialist, have been developing and populating a website for parents (https://wakelet.com/@LincolnCatholicSchools) that contains online resources for every level, broken down into subjects.
“It’s small now, but with a group of principal-endorsed school-level educators (Wakelet Lead Teachers), it will continue to grow,” Sister Mary said.
Nielsen and Whitford trained several school’s faculties on how to be ‘distance educators’ and continue to provide help for any teacher or administrator who reach out to them. Schools are addressing online education in a variety of ways – using PowerSchool Learning, recording lessons, and posting to YouTube.
“We are working hard to support each teacher at the level they need support,” Sister Mary said. “We are also hoping to provide assistance with some standard platform for teachers who have little to no experience with distance learning.”
Going forward, the office is developing plans to best help transition teachers who had not yet embraced the Learning Management System, PowerSchool Learning, to become online educators, and they aare looking at finding a different platform for K-3 teachers and students.
“We are also investigating the possibility of finding a K-8 or K-12 online curriculum that is morally and technologically acceptable,” she said. “It is a ‘worst-case scenario’ that we may need to plan for online learning to continue up to 18 months out. Rather than reinvent the wheel, there may well be a system that we could implement. This would be extremely carefully vetted.”
