Episode 45: Keeping the Zoom Alive
 Sean Tibor: [00:00:16] Hello and welcome to teaching Python. My name's Sean Tibor. I'm a coder who teaches.
Kelly Paredes: [00:00:22] And my name's Kelly Schuster-Paredes and I'm a teacher who codes.
Sean Tibor: [00:00:25] This is episode 45 keeping the zoom alive. So we are joined this week by no one. It's just Kelly and I, and we're live streaming this on Twitter. So I'm hoping that this turns out well and it's a good experience. We are excited about watching this later and seeing how everyone's joining in. if you're joining in live, you can.
Always tweet to us at teaching Python, and we will take your comments live as they come in. So Kelly's going to be playing our social media manager today and watching tweet deck for those, those tweets. If you have anything you want to send to us, 
Kelly Paredes: [00:01:01] We're checking. Yeah. I get checking on our, on our volume there for you, Sean, how are you?
Sean Tibor: [00:01:07] Yeah, I think it's coming through now. I mean, hopefully someone can, can let us know. It might be a little bit of a delay getting to us, but just, let us know how things are going. I, I'm trying to manage a bunch of different fiddly knobs and Gridley things and stuff to get adult to work. So I think there's like 17 different controls to mute and unmute and manage right now.
Kelly Paredes: [00:01:27] It's really, it's really weird. This whole life thing, and I've got, you know, I have two computers, but for some reason working on two computers when I have a microphone in my way is a little bit too much. So I've got like, you know, all my little screens in little tiny corners. So it's, it's something, if you've never done this live streaming, definitely give it a try. What do you have to lose? We tried it once.
Sean Tibor: [00:01:51] I mean, we're all, we're all at home in front of our computers anyways, right. And, and. We figured this is great on a Sunday afternoon, you know, maybe things are quiet, you've got a little bit of time to check in with us and see how things are going. so we're going to start the same way we do every week, which is with the winds of the week.
And we're also, since we're live, going to ask our listeners to tweet in their wins of the week this week so we can share them with our, our recorded audience. but Kelly, would you like to go first? You, would you like me to take a crack at it?
Kelly Paredes: [00:02:18] you know what, I'm going to go because thanks to you, I actually started, getting, uh, when we were at that point of the quarter when we're working with the card games. And I. I don't think I set my expectations or maybe I could, I didn't manage my, workload well or understanding of how it was going to work on zoom.
So that's like my fail. but trying to work with, students and doing the Le, the CoLab and working through their problems, they all seem to have the same problems. And thanks to you, Sean, you showed me how to manage like 12 of them all with one little screenshot using what did you use CoLab.
Side-by-side view or
Sean Tibor: [00:03:00] Yeah. I just looked at the revision history, or I showed you the revision history, so you can see what I had changed and what, what you had.
Kelly Paredes: [00:03:06] it was brilliant. It was brilliant. so the big win, I think, we have one student who is taking the card game over and beyond. We always have that one child that just goes incredible, and he's, he's doing chips and buy-ins and he has, he has a lot of code going there and has asked for extension.
And. It's just been, it's been a fun experience watching them virtually code because I'm sharing in with their, their colabs and so that's kind of like my win is it's, it's actually working after it was failing for so long, for a whole week of failure. It's working now.
Sean Tibor: [00:03:44] Yeah, I, I, I've said it before. I'll say it again. I think there's something with endorphins or some sort of brain chemistry that kicks in when you have those moments of frustration or long drawn out periods of frustration that suddenly get relieved and it starts working. And I'm convinced that's, that's why most of us are coders is because of that feeling when it works and it's magic.
It's just like, Oh, finally.
Kelly Paredes: [00:04:08] Finally, finally, I think I was trying to go too far and learn too much at once while trying to teach. but Hey, we'll talk about that in a little bit.
Sean Tibor: [00:04:16] Yeah. Well, we'll get to that too. so for me, I had a a really great week and it was definitely a reach. I was outside of my comfort zone trying something new. And so this week I was teaching functions. I was at this point where I was ready to start teaching. Students about how to use functions to encapsulate parts of their program, to modularize it, to break it down into smaller problems and things like that.
But I realized the other concept that I really wanted to teach them was this idea of, like abstracting a way, complexity, right? Or, or making complex, code. Really, really simple. And so what I did was rather than use the standard, kind of like make a multiply function or make some sort of math, arithmetic function that takes inputs and returns and output.
I took a little bit of a break in the middle. So I introduced functions and I talked about how we define them and how they take inputs and return, values. And then I took a moment and I had them research about object detection using this, program. that's. Basically does fast, easy image detection
it acts as  a layer on top of TensorFlow and, some of the, Yolo image detection or object detection algorithms, and it makes it a lot easier. But then I realized like even that level of abstraction and that level of simplicity is probably not ready for day two of using functions.
So I wrote some helper functions on top of that and basically said like. You know, you can give this function a URL, it'll go download it and put it into CoLab and give you back a file name that you can use to pass into this analyze image function. And the analyze image function that I wrote just goes through and takes that file name, analyzes it, pulls all the objects out, and returns it as a list of dictionaries to the calling, you know, calling place.
So it worked really, really well. Because we had taken the moment where we had paused from coding, learn about object detection, and done a little bit of just imagining what you could use this for, what kind of problems could we solve, how could we use it? And they were able to then go back and with just a few lines of code, right.
this object detection, program, that would. Take an input to paste in the URL of an image and detect whatever's in it, and then use some conditional logic afterwards to say, here's what we found, or here's what we didn't find. and I had all kinds of cool projects and cool ideas. I had, kind of person detection stuff for security cameras and things like that.
But someone then also said, well, if the list contains a person in the image and a knife and the image, then we're going to assume that that might be someone who's. Like dangerous and we should tell someone, right? So using that insecurity feeds, I thought that was really great. another one that people are working on, our students were working on and they don't think that the model that we were using was quite, there was one that would take a, like a picture that, a boat would see.
Like it was a camera mounted on top of a boat and it would look for like manatees and dolphins and things like that. So that. that it would alert the pilot of the boat or the driver of the boat that there's a Manatee or a dolphin in the way. And you need to move out of the way. So, kind of going a little bit further, especially since so many students here in South Florida are familiar with boating and everything and familiar with Marine life.
they were coming up with a really cool ideas for how they could help. You know, help solve some real problems. And that was just a great win this week to see them kind of get excited about what was possible with AI and computer vision.
Kelly Paredes: [00:07:42] That's super cool. I'm, I kind of was glad that you got to go and do it first so then I can follow. We sort of flip flops. You're going to be doing some of the. Coding next week, and I'm going to take on some AI. I was looking at some of the stuff from farm femmes. they post a little bit of an online course on, on, face recognition and also Dale lane.
He posted some, new AI using replica, which I was going to look at this weekend, but I haven't gotten to.
Sean Tibor: [00:08:10] Yeah, I'm definitely going to share. So I'll put this in the show notes. I'm going to share some of the stuff that we, That we have. I think the, the object detection, code is coming from, a team in, in Africa, and they're doing some really, really cool stuff with us, is really awesome and it makes it so much easier to use this as part of your code.
So I, I'm excited about it and excited to share it. there's been some really cool, tools and apps that we found. Also, there's a really great Ted talk on  how far object detection has come to the point where you can do real time video, object detection, and just awesome, awesome stuff that's happening right now.
So I'm, I'm happy to put that in the show notes and have everyone take a look at it because there's some really cool information out there if you want to start bringing it into your classrooms and with your students, I think it's really pretty accessible at this point.
Kelly Paredes: [00:09:00] Excellent. and I'm going to see how I can extrapolate that down to my sixth graders who, bye. Let me tell you are going to be so ready for you in eighth grade because the functions, I had a sixth grader, this should have been my, when, I don't know why, but I had a sixth grader, right? they had to do the magic eight ball and do a mashup.
And I said, as long as it doesn't look like the magic APL, and this kid wrote 200 lines in sixth grade, I was impressed. So.
Sean Tibor: [00:09:25] Just cranking
Kelly Paredes: [00:09:27] Cranking through it and with functions. These are with functions. So I introduced basic functions after we were, we ran out of things to teach going somewhere. So anyways, let's go into the, 
Sean Tibor: [00:09:38] Oh, well, we didn't do the fail of the week. I
Kelly Paredes: [00:09:39] Oh, fail.
Sean Tibor: [00:09:40] with, yeah. Fail of the
Kelly Paredes: [00:09:41] You can have the fail my fail. So my biggest fail is it's really hard for me. I, I didn't, like I was saying earlier, I didn't. Really comprehend how hard it was to look at a kid's screen through zoom. I mean, even with these shared it with me, but have them talk through what errors and going through all the trace back errors and CoLab and helping them, Try to find the next step of their code when they're scrolling. I'm like, no, no, wait. And then I finally, I finally learned that, yeah, I can take control and zoom. Why did I wait eight weeks? I cannot believe you didn't tell me this, but I could take control of there. There's cream soup, which has helped.
Sean Tibor: [00:10:21] and, and that I think. But I think that's a really great experience too though, because to see how it looks for them to be seeing us it, when I have seen other students who are sharing their screen and showing me what they're doing, it's made me think more about how quickly I'm moving through a lesson both on my screencasts that are prerecorded as well as in the zoom and the.
Biggest takeaway is just slow down, right? Just slow down. We don't have to rush it. There's plenty of time, and I think I forget, it's one of, it's one of your friends that keep saying, kids learn despite our best efforts. Right. That if we get them part way there. And, and get them excited about it and get them interested.
They will cross the finish line. They will keep going and they will keep learning. so maybe we don't have to cover everything, but what we do cover should be good and exciting and interesting.
Kelly Paredes: [00:11:12] Absolutely. So I'm gonna just pull this out there again for a couple of our listeners, if you have anything wins or even an Epic fail that you've learned from, this week or through this online learning phase of our lives, go ahead and just send us a message and I'm trying to man everything. I know Shawn's double checking on me too.
Sean Tibor: [00:11:31] Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on things, but like maybe we'll loop back at the end of the episode for questions and wins the week and things like that. So, you know, we'll keep this as interactive as possible. I'm excited about the possibilities for this. so we'll just keep it, keep it going as long as we can.
so for, for me, my, my fail this week I think is kind of a, an ongoing fail and it's, I think I'm doing everything I can about it. but my biggest concern is that it's easy in an easier, I think when we're on campus and face to face. To keep track of all the students, right? If someone doesn't show up to class, that's pretty obvious.
But if someone shows up to class, you can gauge how are they doing? How are they engaging? Are they involved, are they active? That sort of thing. And one of the things that I'm seeing, and one of the things I'm concerned about in my classes are the kids that are falling between the cracks, the kids that are falling behind a little bit or a lot, in some cases, the kids that are really struggling with distance learning and.
In some cases we find the kids that are way behind in all the classes, but then there's the kids in the middle that maybe are struggling in one or two. How do we know that they're keeping up? How do we know that they're staying engaged and with it? And I know we'll get into some of that in the main topic, but I've got several students that I am putting an extra effort on, like I'm emailing them every day.
I'm reaching out to them, I'm talking to their parents. I'm trying to do everything I can possibly think of to help keep them going. Because like. I don't really, it's not so much the grades. I just don't want to see them get left behind. I don't want to see them get disengaged or feel like they can't do something because of distance learning and if there's something I can do to help them find a way to make it work, then I think that, you know, they will pull through it and they'll build that kind of persistence, perseverance, resilience, that that is so great for SEL and this is such a great time to be building that.
I think they could, could really gain a lot from it. Maybe with just a little extra help. So right now I feel like I'm failing because they're not getting there yet, but I'm hopeful like I have. I'm optimistic
Kelly Paredes: [00:13:35] Yeah. It's one of those things as, as a teacher, you, you want, you want your students to succeed, not because it makes, You more successful, but or, I mean it does, but it's just this, this connection that you have with students. So when, when they start to fail, it almost, it's almost feels like it's a reflection of yourself.
Even though you're talking and saying, I know it's not me. I'm doing the best I can. But as that teacher voice keeps coming out, what else can I do to help them? And I think every teacher can kind of empathize with that feeling of, you know. I just want them to feel this passion for learning and to continue to have it, and we don't want to be the ones that you know are the root or maybe the the person that's not helping them come
Sean Tibor: [00:14:22] Yeah. I, I don't, I don't want to fail them. Right? Like, I want, I want to, at the end of it, if I look in the mirror and say, what more could I have done? The answer hopefully is nothing. Right? Like, there's nothing more I could do to help them. It's the, at some point they have to do the work. At some point they have to pick themselves up and do it.
so I just, I guess it's just a, it's a hard thing to go through. It's when you connect with your students, when you feel emotionally invested in them and that they are, they're important. You know, like each of these students are important and their journey is important and I want to help them along the way with that.
Kelly Paredes: [00:14:58] I know. I know. But we'll get there. They'll get there. Let's get positive.
Sean Tibor: [00:15:04] know they will. And I keep, I keep bringing that positive attitude to them and saying like, I know they can do it. I know they can make it happen. They just have to start now. And I'm trying to make it happen before the end of the year because as, as a transition into our subject, there's some, there's some pretty tough, obstacles in our way right now.
I think, I mean, what's the latest on your, replica counter in terms of number of days left of school? I think it's like, you know, we're down to the last two weeks of school.
Kelly Paredes: [00:15:32] yeah, I forgot about that. You know, we need to post that. you know, I have
Sean Tibor: [00:15:36] link to the replica
Kelly Paredes: [00:15:37] I have so many pages. I did, I was doing, what was I practicing more date time, coding cause I got lost in collections, in name two bulls. And I was like, ah, I've given up on that stuff. And I backed away from name tubals and so I went back to some date time and what did I have?
We have 16 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes and 57 seconds left. Who's counting?
Sean Tibor: [00:16:04] Oh, so, so while we're, while we're transitioning, Tom Harris from Twitter jumped on and said that he's got his win this week has been a PI image search with Adrian Rose Brock. so he's been. working through person detection examples, with that guide and some, Dan's videos with open CV and num PI.
So that's kinda cool. I, I'll have to go check that out too. I think that kind of post detection and stuff is, is really fascinating stuff also.
Kelly Paredes: [00:16:30] Yeah, and I want to do some of that open CV. I keep touching it and going back and then I'm like, Nope, not ready for that.
Sean Tibor: [00:16:37] No,
Kelly Paredes: [00:16:37] I mean, a little bit, a little bit of, we'll see. All right, so you lost that loving feeling, keeping it alive here.
Sean Tibor: [00:16:46] Yeah, it's, well, so it's been two months, right? We're getting, I mean, I can see it. I have a four year old son. And the last thing he wants to do now is get on a zoom. He doesn't want to watch another video. He doesn't want to be on a zoom. He, he's done right? Like he's, he really doesn't want to.
And so we're thinking, we're always working with him on how to keep him engaged and, you know, keep him interested in his own learning. And it's just tough for everyone. So how can we as teachers do some things to make these zooms more engaging. We know that it's the end of the year, and we know that regardless of the end of the year of being in distance learning or not, the end of the year is always tough to keep engagement up.
So how do we keep it up over zoom? So, Kelly, you had pulled together a list. Can you, 
Kelly Paredes: [00:17:28] We'll do one by one. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so I'm going to say like my first tip that has been at least working for me, and it's kind of made it fun besides the fact of allowing the kids to have that conversation piece for, for a little bit of time. My biggest win right now with keeping the zoom alive is those breakout rooms.
I have been putting kids in breakout rooms with some challenges that they're working on. in different situations, I will make one of my star coders, another teacher and cohost and let him or her pop around in a, in a room so that I can help manage the load. and then I also, for the kids that get the challenge quickly, I moved them into the rooms around, and split them up.
For example, I had a logo turtle logo challenge. Last week, two weeks, I don't even know what day
Sean Tibor: [00:18:19] Yeah, that was really
Kelly Paredes: [00:18:20] it was. So cool. I, I sixth grader, they had 10 minutes. They had three people in a breakout room, and I said, here, you know, make a logo. And I had one of the kids, he coded the Moolah logo and I was like, Holy cow, that's so awesome.
I'm going to send this to Nick. And Nick retweeted it and said, you know, we're sixth graders are famous. But that kind of that challenge, that competition, that intrinsic value came out. and that's been really working. So breakout rooms, letting the kids just have some fun and giving some strategically placing.
Some stronger students, throughout the breakout rooms has been really good with keeping that and they look forward to it. They're like, are we going to do breakout rooms today? Okay. So that's my.
Sean Tibor: [00:19:04] really good. Yeah. And, and I think that works best when you're talking about either like a piece of a pro, a bigger problem or something that is a 10 to 15 minute chunk. because they are working independently. If you go bigger than that, like something that's a larger project, they might get lost and then you spend more time kind of helping guide them through it.

Kelly Paredes: [00:19:22] Alright, so your, your tip for keeping the zoom. I had breakout rooms.
Sean Tibor: [00:19:26] Yeah. I mean, for me it's how do we keep them engaged? And I think the, especially in distance learning, I think at least my inclination and what I've seen from my colleagues has always been to lean in. That every moment has to matter.
That we have these assignments that we're doing every day. that everything has to be very serious. And I was looking at it, I tallied it up at this point. I've graded a thousand assignments this quarter. Because I'm doing something every single day for all of my students across all the classes. It's a thousand assignments in eight weeks or seven weeks.
the pace is insane. And so what I've started to do is take my Fridays and make them ungraded assignments, things that are not technically optional, but something that I don't have to grade and something that they don't have to submit. And so we've been playing some games together, and so I've started hosting a.
An afternoon coding with Minecraft session over zoom, and I'll give everyone my game code and they can join in and it's with the Minecraft education edition, which is amazing. They have Python code samples in there. You can edit them, you can do all kinds of things. And I still like it because my students have been impressed that I can make an aquarium, a giant aquarium appear out of nowhere with fish and.
Dolphins and everything. And, and I, I was able to write it all on Python, on, on Minecraft with the coding builder that they have. So it's pretty amazing how much you can do over zoom with, with students. And I had three or four students in there all messing around with me at the same time. And you know.
You could say like, well, I didn't max out the room. I didn't get all 30 people into Minecraft. Right? But for the four kids who were there, they had a blast. Right? So it mattered to them and it mattered to me. And that was something that I think helped them stay a little bit more engaged throughout the week.
Kelly Paredes: [00:21:18] absolutely. There's, I'll see if I can find it for show notes, but there was a document that went around, from a teacher in international school. She sent out, it was like a five page piece of Google drive document with how to play games, all kinds of games, monopoly, monopoly, and dice games. you name it.
So I do a lot of those with the advisory. We, I made a jeopardy game. Trying to get my advisory kids, and I had a couple teachers in there. I have a couple of teachers at constantly zoom, BOM, BOM. What is it when they drop into, they're like, Oh, I found your leak on your page. Can I come to your advisory?
What game were you playing today? Like, whatever. But, And then on just Friday we, I opened up this, it was like called beam. It's a game where the, you have to get the beam through the maze and I gave my screen control. This is pure trust. You have to have trust with the students. But I gave my my screen control to a student and they were playing on it.
So yeah, I definitely agree with keeping the engagement, keeping the kids, and they're just, they just want to socialize and they want to come say hi and
Sean Tibor: [00:22:26] They miss their friends, they miss, they miss being part of things. And miss, you know, they've been staring at a wall for seven weeks or eight weeks. Right. You know, I have to put it in a plug for 'em Jackbox games. So, it's, it's been so cool. You know, we have these morning advisories, with groups of students that are assigned to us throughout the year.
And you know, it's a, it's a role that I take very seriously because it's a, an a chance for me to have a relationship with the students. It's not academic, it's more of a, it really is an advising sort of capacity and give them something that's not part of, of the academic day. And so I decided that we needed to do something just to hang out and socialize and have some fun.
So I bought a copy of the Jackbox party pack sex, which if you haven't played it and describe it in like two sentences, if I can. it was originally designed for like playing in your living room with friends where you'd have a screen up on the wall that would be like the main game show screen. And then everyone uses their phones or their devices as their controller to input and draw stuff.
So it asks you to like draw pictures, you can respond to things, it'll do secret messages, and they have different games in this pack with different themes. So like, one is, is, You're trapped on a spaceship, it's called press the button. it's, you're trapped on a spaceship. And some of the people on the crew are humans and some of them are aliens, and you're trying to figure out who the aliens are so you can get them off the ship.
And the humans don't know who the aliens are, but the aliens know who the other aliens are, so they can work together. And so it's like the secret knowledge game, and the kids love it. So whereas. B, you know, before I started doing this, we had one or two kids show up to advisory and it was nice, like we could have a nice conversation, but I had, I think like 10 students show up to be able to play this game together and just hang out and have some fun.
And they loved it so much that they asked if they could do it again the same day. Like, can we do this again this afternoon and just hang out for a bit and do and play more of this? And I said, of
Kelly Paredes: [00:24:17] And I laughed at you when you invited me at four 30 I'm like, I'm done. Don't make me get online anymore.
Sean Tibor: [00:24:27] So this, I mean, I think this is, this is important. It may not be educational, may not be academic, but it is important. So, for those of you who are listening online, if you have some of these suggestions or ideas for things that are also important, but not necessarily academic.
If you can share them with us, we'll put them in the show notes for other people to find too. because I think this stuff really does make a difference in the midst of all of this.
Kelly Paredes: [00:24:48] Absolutely. So, number three on the list, and I'm going to skip around because I want to do this one is like the routines and structures of times for me, I think having something that's routine. I had a conversation with a teacher who has zoomed every single day for the past seven weeks, every single class.
So we're talking five zoom classes a day. Five days a week. Hundred percent engagement. Hundred percent of the kids coming for me. I can't do five days a week. That's, that's crazy. But when I have, my advisory, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they're texting me, where's our zoom meet? I'm like, Oh, okay. I'm coming.
And then on my other classrooms, I've been doing. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. So that routine has been something that if, if we do this again next quarter or next year, I'm definitely finding a routine structure, of the way that we teach and everything. I think that's, that's way to keep the zoom alive.
Kids like to have routines, at least. I know. I like also like to have routines and, I think that that does wonder for engagement.
 so what's your next tip?
Sean Tibor: [00:26:06] so my next tip is, like introduce different activities within the zoom meeting, right?
 you have to find the right balance of features that you want to use for yourself, right? So, some people love using polls, some people love using chat, other people turn the chat off so the students can only chat with them. And I, I love keeping the, the back channel chat going, right?
I love giving students the opportunity to have a, side channel chat going or have the ability to, to. You know, get information out there so that they don't have to interrupt whoever's speaking at the time. no, it does introduce another thing to manage as a teacher to make sure that they're keeping the chat appropriate.
and sometimes that can be challenging, right? Especially kids get bored and they want to goof around and everything like that, so you have to keep them focused. But. And being able to use the different features of whatever platform you're on, to be able to keep them engaged and give them some variety rather than just, you know, droning on and on and on, on video and everything.
The whole time it, it matters to make some, breaks in the content and then the delivery so that the students have the variety and they keep their attention because it's not always the same thing over and over again.
Kelly Paredes: [00:27:16] Absolutely. Absolutely. Like I remember, I'm trying to, today's meat. That's what I was thinking. Today's meat. There was used to be a thing when we were learning how to be edged learning how to be ed tech specialists. Back in the days I was in my masters and some days meet in that back channeling. That was a way to get the quiet kid, the shy student, the introvert student, how to get them engaged into the conversation, and, and add, add a conversation on their end.
And I love that feature in zoom. I know as teachers, we, we tend to, Chat a lot on our zoom meetings, our ed tech meetings, but it's, it's that benefit that that we can have a side conversation that's equally important as the current conversation and it's like we get more information coming in.
Sean Tibor: [00:28:09] Yeah. And it doesn't have to be quite so synchronous. Right. So it doesn't have to be. Everyone listening to me right now, here's something I can put into the chat and someone can come back to it in 15 seconds or a minute when they have a moment to, to review it. So I think it's, I think it's really important.
And look, let me, let me be honest. Like years of, of being in corporate settings and working with, you know, video chat and people all over the globe and, and everything in remote meetings. If you don't have a live chat going on your zoom, if you don't have, a place for them to do it, they're chatting on their phones anyways, right?
They're texting their friends. They're like saying, get a load of this guy. You know, like, like object detection. What is he talking about? they're doing it anyways, right? So if you turn it off, if you block them, you're just encouraging them to open up a side channel anyways. If you bring it into your zoom, you're embracing it, you're making it okay for them to share.
They may still do some of that really back channel side messaging and stuff like that, but at least this way you can make it part of the conversation instead of excluding it. So,
Kelly Paredes: [00:29:12] agree.
I love the kids. I love the kids who though we'll bring in, they're like so and so's FaceTime. And I'm like, well. Point them to the picture, so, so that I can watch them to why they're FaceTiming you. But yeah, bring it into the conversation. A hundred percent that child who's texting on their phone, you don't know what's going on.
Let them chat and have that backchanneling going in there.
Sean Tibor: [00:29:36] I mean, honestly, it could be their, their mom downstairs saying, Hey, lunch is going to be ready in 20 minutes or whatever. Like, I mean. You can tell pretty easily. If they look down at their laugh and they're laughing, giggle like they're on their phone. Right.
Kelly Paredes: [00:29:47] I've got that. Very good. I'm very good at doing that now.
Sean Tibor: [00:29:51] I'm sure
Kelly Paredes: [00:29:53] So yes, introducing different activities within zoom. I've tried the pole. I've seen some really good PowerPoint, you know, slide presentations in zoom where a person's flipped back and forth. I'm not quite there yet. I do try to prep, using the skills that we learned from David and Chris from real Python.
prep my code a little bit more. I like to prep and flip between my code and the screen. I don't like to leave my screen there the whole time. I like the kids to share their screens. I always leave that open. That keeps engagement. I'll call out on a person that's obviously zoning out or has a mute, and I'm like, Johnny.
Share your screen. What do you have coding on there? Yeah, one second. So I, not that I'm trying to really call them out, but it's just they get excited about sharing their screen and taking control of the class and the fact that everyone has to watch their screen. So that really helps to keep that zoom engagement going.
Sean Tibor: [00:30:53] Yeah. I, I also like the, like any sort of feature that you have in your platform, you know, zoom, has it. I think other ones do where you can have the audience give feedback. So I use the, the yes, no check marks. So, you know, I, I want everyone to get to a certain point where their code, like, open up this CoLab, share it with me, make a copy, whatever it is.
And when you're done, press the yes button so I know that you're, you're good to go. And they sit there and watch for all the green check marks. And if someone's not. Filling it in, I can say, Hey, is everything okay? What's going on? and especially when you pair that with having everyone keep their video on so you can see them, you can make the eye contact, that sort of thing.
Kelly Paredes: [00:31:27] But 
you don't. 
Sean Tibor: [00:31:27] it really helps.
Kelly Paredes: [00:31:28] just read an article and this is a little side topic. That's what we do, but I just read an article about a couple of them. The earlier one we read about, zoom videos can be really tiring because we're always, like, right now being on the squad cast and being live, trying to be. More aware of my surroundings.
Try not to look around and talk to anyone, but it's really difficult because I'm, I'm looking at you and we're trying to make that engagement and our facial expressions and our words, obviously, but our facial expressions. Have to be on cue when you're on zoom. And so I've read an article with, it's really difficult for middle schoolers and high schoolers to be on zoom with the video.
So I do, I do allow them to switch off their video and I'm like, listen, if you want to switch off your video, go for it. If you want to go on mute, fine. But just know that I'm going to call on you and ask you to share their screen. And I find that it. It engages them more. They can throw their screen up there and still have their video off, and they're not constantly worrying about what they're looking at.
You know what? If they're picking their nose, you don't know or something, but it's not as tiring for them. And I find that that, that does help keep them a little bit more engaged sometimes. Yeah.
Sean Tibor: [00:32:46] Yeah, I agree. I mean like I have to, I use different, I don't use it all the time to have them with their video on, but I find it if it's something that. That I'm explaining like this week with all that object detection and computer vision, the I really wanted to be able to see them and see like, do I have them?
Are they getting it? Are they understanding? Are they confused? Are they excited? Like what's happening? I needed that visual feedback because it was the first time I was teaching it this way. And I, I needed as the teacher to be able to tailor it. But there's other times when it's like, if it's something I've taught three or four times already, like I can know how it works generally pretty well, and then I can, you know, keep them engaged with the techniques you're talking about.
So I think you have to tailor it based on the content and based on the delivery that you have. the other thing that I thought was, was pretty important about this one too, is. With zoom and with video chat and everything, you're sitting in one place and to keep your head centered in the video and to be like on the zoom, you have to, there's a certain amount of tension that you have to keep in your body.
You have to be sitting upright, you have to be focused, you have to be doing all these things. And if we were in the classroom, you know, we'd be walking around, we'd be talking, we'd be moving. We'd be varying our position within the room. The students would be able to move around and still stay engaged.
And so. I think that's something to be aware of. The longer that your session lasts, the harder it is for students physically to keep their energy level up and stay engaged with it. So giving that opportunity to have their video off at times and everything, to be able to relax and move around a bit makes a big difference.
Kelly Paredes: [00:34:20] Absolutely. So number five, we've got more than number five, but I'm going to, since she's listening, I'm going to go ahead and call it out. But one of our colleagues, Debra, she uses a lot of the responsive classroom techniques. Your science and it's one of the things, it's, it's a little bit, um, harder to do I think in middle school without being corny or cheesy and put it on the responsive classroom.
But some of the techniques, if it's something in the way that you teach, like if it's something you're comfortable doing and the way that your teach teaching, these soft skills. come natural to you. Then I really do encourage everyone to look into it. I do some of the techniques that work for me, and I know just even asking kids and having them answer in what with a one word or a thumbs up or some sort of connection is really important at the beginning and giving them time to just me.
I always say my zoom starts stay at 10. And I don't start teaching until 10 Oh six and I have kids that come in at nine 55 and we just talk about what's going on with the weekend. Just trying to get something that's not always go straight to coding because 15 minutes of solid coding on zoom. I'm slamming through some concepts and they've already watched a screencast and they have assignment due and they're doing tinker as well.
They've got a lot going on. They just need time to socialize. So that responsive classroom technique for using in the class and on zoom, it really works.
Sean Tibor: [00:35:56] Yeah. I think that's something that I'd like to do more of, especially, you know, as we close out this year, as we look ahead to next year when we may be doing more. distance learning in a blended fashion or however we choose to do it. that's something that I think it really makes a difference for students to have that moment to come in and get settled, just as if they were coming into a classroom and getting settled as well.
So, I definitely think that that makes a difference. And that's something that for me has been tough to learn because it's some things that I sort of do naturally or unconsciously, but responsive classroom is a full. Set of activities and approaches and philosophies that it takes a while to acquire all that information and become skilled at it.
Kelly Paredes: [00:36:38] Absolutely. So let's switch gears because it's not just the kids who need some engagement.
Sean Tibor: [00:36:44] right. I mean, it's, it's the end of the year and I think every teacher out there, every, every non-teacher other can agree that this has been a particularly unique year, in so many ways. There has been so much going on, and as I mentioned, for me at least, and I know for you, the piece has been very intense.
It has been a lot of effort and trial and tribulation to get distance learning to happen in an effective way, especially since it happens so quickly, at least for us. You know, we, we went from, I think two months ago, we went from. We had prepared for a couple of weeks that this might be a possibility. And then we were told at four 30 on a Friday that we would be closing the campus and, and starting distance learning at eight 30 on Monday morning.
and ever since then it's been an absolute sprint to try to figure out how to make it all work best. And, and I think at this point, like personally, I'm tired. I'm exhausted, I'm ready for the end of end of year, and I'm ready for some, some change over the summer to be able to focus on different things and recharge my batteries after the last two
Kelly Paredes: [00:37:50] Yeah, it's always, it is always hard. Those last one, two month, you know. Last two months of the school year. It's, it's trying to keep the motivation. The kids are looking for the summer. You know, we don't have that many, vacations set up. We do have one next weekend, which is. Killer. It's awesome, but it's going to be even harder the next day coming back to school.
But you have to come up with the tricks and the, and the ideas and the fun activities. I know I'm saving the artificial intelligence for the last, the last four or five days, so that's something that usually engages them, but I'm trying to find it in yourself. To keep that at that enthusiasm. energy.
Cause if I come into the zoom and I'm just like, Hey guys, I'm exhausted. They're going to be tuned out and we can't do that so. Just trying to find the things that work. And I try to pull some things together, but I'm running out of ideas. But my first one, so I updated our workspaces. I know my kids are now sitting right next to me, which is killing me.
But, we rearranged and I pulled a desk and I put it somewhere else. I had to rearrange the house cause I was tired of looking at it. so I think updating the workspace, updating, How you store things or just changing it around has been giving us a little bit more energy, at least in my household.
Sean Tibor: [00:39:17] Yeah, it is. Oftentimes, it's the little things, right? It's the little things that make a big difference. we've set up at the dining room table, so we've got my wife's workstation next to me where she's doing her, her corporate job. from here, I'm teaching right next to her and we're sitting at the dining room table on our dining room chairs, which.
we're not designed to be sat on for six hours a day or eight hours a day, doing zoom lessons and emails and one on one sessions. So, it's not very comfortable. And then I realized, I'm going to show this. I realize I had one of the seat cushions that, that was sitting in a closet, and I just realized it last week that I had it, and I could use it to try to.
To make my, my experience a little more comfortable. So it's something small, but it made such a big difference from my comfort while teaching and while working with the students. Just something that, that helped freshen things up and make it a little bit easier to, to stay engaged throughout the day.
Kelly Paredes: [00:40:14] Yeah. I usually take my computer when I start having that low moment of the day. I take my computer and I go outside and I record either my screencast or, or a lesson outside. she just got to change it up. I mean at school we would be out. I know the, we always take our walk around the Lake. We would get up and walk around the Lake and get reenergized and be ready for the the afternoon lessons.
So you don't have that. You don't have that someone to push you and say, Hey, let's get out and go for a walk. So change up your workspace, see how that works. I would like to see how the people that constantly work from home, if they ever changed their workspace because it might break their rhythm.
It'd be interesting.
Sean Tibor: [00:40:56] Well, I think the guidance that I've always had, and unfortunately, like my house is not really set up for it. I don't think yours is either, is it? the best thing for longterm working from home is that you have a designated space for your work that is not part of your living area, so that you have a room that you can put all of your stuff in, that you can close the door, that this is where.
The work happens and then the rest of the house is where the living and playing and relaxing happens. So right now, I think is one of the reasons why this is particularly taxing is because I'm at my dining room table. I'm right in the middle of everything. And so I can, I don't really get away from my work.
I don't have the ability to change my workspace to change my, the place where I'm sitting. So, you know, it is tough to do that for an extended period of time.
Kelly Paredes: [00:41:41] Absolutely. I hate it. Cause every morning I bring back my computer and my work stuff and every afternoon I have to clear up, clear off my dining room table as well. And it's like closing up today. Clean up. Alright.
Sean Tibor: [00:41:55] But you know, the nice thing about that is that at the end of the day, it's closed and it's done right. So if you wanted to work, you couldn't just like easily jump over into it. You have to set it back up again, which is going to force you to really think, is it worth it?
Kelly Paredes: [00:42:07] No. No. So number two, your number two
Sean Tibor: [00:42:12] Number two is, is find something new for yourself. Find a project, find something that is going to get you excited and interested. for me, that has been automating all the things in my house. so it's actually where the computer vision, the object detection came from because I had gotten so deep into the rabbit hole of home automation that I was doing.
person detection on all the security cameras around the house and using, an algorithm and actually the Google coral a USB adapter. It's like a thing that does, TensorFlow faster. And so I was getting so excited about what it could do because it can detect people and it can detect cats and dogs and cars and all these things.
And. When you pair that with the security system, I can get notifications now that's not just like, Oh, movement was detected, but no, a person was detected and here's their picture. And so I thought to myself like, well, that would be really cool. Like how can I use this in the classroom? And I wouldn't have been able to use that or come up with that idea unless I had done the side project for myself.
Something that kept me interested and excited and it could be. You know, nothing to do with computer science. That's your project. Maybe it's, you know, deciding to run a five K or getting some sort of like getting a new bike or getting something that just gets you a project so that you stay engaged in something and you don't kind of wallow in the shut-in lifestyle.
Kelly Paredes: [00:43:32] Yeah, absolutely. I another one of our colleagues. Every single day. they have a new goal of what they're going to learn. well, she's T she's taking painting. She's, she has sent me a course about, some sort of Eastern European something crisis. And she's like, I'm learning and you should take this course too.
So I agree. I agree. Try something new. I decided to try to, learn a new way to teach the card game in the middle of teaching the car game. Don't ever do that. cause it totally was not. It's really hard to teach something that you don't really know well, so don't do that. But yeah, definitely been trying some new things.
Like I bought a paddleboard and the kids and I are either on a kayak, I'm on a paddleboard. So we started doing that every day. And then I've also started running. So that's been, kind of like my number three of try something new and slash self care. So that's another tip of keeping us going. I try to take an afternoon lunch, walk, with my kids.
Like we did in the classroom, and that's kind of been keeping my engagement. I can come back from the walk, sit down and like, okay, we got this. You do your work. I do my work for more hours. We can keep going.
Sean Tibor: [00:44:53] I mean, to be honest, I think that's the part that I've been missing. just that self care part of it. I know I've been sitting too long in front of the computer. I know I haven't been giving myself enough breaks and enough exercise and everything. So that's one of my things that I am. I've got planned as kind of a ramp into the summer, so starting small this week, going into next week, and, really trying to get.
Back into a little bit of a routine in terms of exercise and health and everything, and just being less sedentary right now. So it's something that, you know, it's like there's so many different, so many different things to try to manage. but I think that one makes a big difference, especially when you are in front of the computer for so long each
Kelly Paredes: [00:45:29] and that's why I type number five and I don't know if you noticed that when you were talking, learn to shut down.
Sean Tibor: [00:45:37] I don't know how to do that. Just switched tasks.
Kelly Paredes: [00:45:40] someone asked me, and I think that goes with our department of just the people that we are in the tech field. They're like, do you do anything besides work? And I'm like, no. That's like my passion. That's all I know. So I've always got my phone on. I'm always reading some new article. I'm always searching for something.
More engaging or some more information about some other topic that I'm looking at. So number five, Sean learned to shut down.
That was actually number four. But go ahead.
Sean Tibor: [00:46:19] no, it's, it's true though. I mean, I do feel that it is, it is really important to do that and it's something that I've always struggled with. especially when it comes to technology, because I love getting lost in the focus of a project or trying to figure out a problem or how to solve it.
you know, was swimming in the pool today and had one of those ideas like, Oh, I know how to solve this problem, and like, I couldn't wait to get back and go solve it. There's always something like that that's out there and finding the discipline to shut things down and just take a night off or take a few hours off and, and really just not do anything.
productive, you know, like do something else that may not be as measurable is a challenge, but also very important and necessary.
Kelly Paredes: [00:47:01] Absolutely. Do you want to take the last one on the
Sean Tibor: [00:47:04] Yeah. Yeah. Reading, reading. take some time to read. Just, it's, it's like, it's so good for you to read whatever it is that you're reading. I would probably stay away from like politics, unless that's really your thing, but find something that relaxes you and keeps you stimulated.
I have been reading, just a ton of, of fiction over the break as well. Or another way to break the, distance learning. I've been reading a ton of fiction. My is getting a workout and it is really nice cause it's something that gives me a chance to switch gears in my brain and try something, try something different, and yet feel like it's something vital or useful.
Kelly Paredes: [00:47:42] Yes, absolutely. I've been reading, I do my normal, my normal reading. I have six books, and I read them all here because all my books are all nonfiction. I, I've gone back and I've got back into upstream again. I was reading that earlier. but I kind of skim through them really fast. And then I always like to just pick up the book and I kind of pick up a book and just wherever it opens, I start reading.
And that's just kind of how I am, is kind of how I read online as well. But the one thing that I do read a lot is with my kids. We read every night, so they read their own book. And then we have a book that we read together. my youngest is into road doll, so we've read the chocolate factory, we've read, I'm the fabulous Mr. Fox and now we're reading, giant peach and a couple other, and then my oldest, I just got him, and you'll appreciate this. I'll probably end up having to pass it, but. Wars for boys. So he's, he's reading from bunker Hill to, he'll be reading to the world war two, both Pacific and Europe.
It's, it's a cute little book. I just got it. And he just was telling me, did you know this? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I will read that with you. But yeah, he goes, he's been burning through books. He likes the hard copy books. And so my Amazon bill has been atrocious, but what can you do? What can I say.
Yeah.
Sean Tibor: [00:49:08] I did. I did have a, this week I started reading Winnie the Pooh to my kids and I had just like, it's such a charming book. It's so, it's one of my favorites. It, and it's so funny. It's so clever, the way that it's written, it's so insightful. There's a reason why it's a classic and I enjoy that time with them.
I enjoy that time of reading with them and reading to them and having just some quiet time where we can giggle a little bit and enjoy the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the a hundred acre wood and. It just helps close out the day. And it's so nice to have those moments. And those are the things that I think I'm going to treasure the most from this time are that the moments that, you know, I helped someone, one of my students, it's the moments that I spent with my family that I wouldn't get to.
I'm not going to miss like the trying to try and figure out which zoom we're supposed to be on now and, and everything. But, but it does, it does matter to have those moments. And I'm, I am grateful for the opportunities that we've had over the last two months to, to have more of those
Kelly Paredes: [00:50:13] absolutely. Here, here. So that was our two top five lists. 
Sean Tibor: [00:50:18] Yeah. We had a how to keep it engaging for your students and how to keep it engaging for yourself. I mean, I think, I mean, the only other, the only other list is how to keep it engaging for your administration. And I think honestly, they can do that. We'll let them, you know, let us know how we can help, you know, keep your, keep your parents engaged, keep the parents engaged.
Maybe. but honestly, I do have to say it's been. It's been a very interesting time and, and I don't know what this would have been like for me personally. Like, you know, two years ago I wasn't a teacher to go through this experience. Now teaching has been, you know, really kind of a remarkable experience.
I know that everyone is going through something right now, whether you're teaching or not, but to be accountable and engaged with your students through all of this and try to be there for them, has been a. A remarkable experience, and it's something that I think it will take me probably years to reflect upon and think about what it, what it really means and how it's affected me longterm.
Kelly Paredes: [00:51:14] Absolutely. I don't have anything to say. I was actually thinking, and I, and I don't even know where I'm going to plug this, but maybe I'm going to plug it and tweet to them.  So I've been playing, if you guys have a chance during this time of being at home, and that's what triggered two things. I pulled out the, all the robots that I took from our classroom and we've been playing a lot. we've got queue. We've got, I pulled Cosmo. I had factor. We have cue, I have the bowl.
Sean Tibor: [00:51:43] the Sphero right.
Kelly Paredes: [00:51:44] well we have Spiro red,
Sean Tibor: [00:51:45] Oh, you have the, the, yeah, the one that's like the, yeah. The one that's got the scent. The
Kelly Paredes: [00:51:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sean Tibor: [00:51:51] yeah. I'll find the link to it. We'll put it in the
Kelly Paredes: [00:51:53] So if your kids are losing their, their, motivation. I've got that. And then I also started him on this math AI game. Learning I told you about smart tech and I just bit the bullet and purchased it. Sean's like, it's really good. The kids are hooked.
And so if your kids are losing motivation for learning on zoom, maybe look into bringing other fun educational things. And we always love our robots and couldn't say. Even if it's just for playing and controlling. Just the idea of them thinking about that bot and that they have the ability to code it or make it move.
It's, it's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool feeling when the kids love learning so.
Sean Tibor: [00:52:35] we've been doing. so my kids have been doing a lot with codeable. And with, the codeable app. And then the other one that they really got into recently that was kind of surprising was adapted mind. so they've, they saw this as a, a YouTube ad. So I actually bought something from a YouTube ad. but it's, it's really kind of cool.
It's a, it has different subject areas and it has adaptive difficulty in the questions that it asks. but one of the things I thought was interesting was it also has a limit on screen time, so it'll only unlock one lesson a day. For the students. Even if they want to go further, it's that it tells them at the end of it, okay, you've done your part, go outside and play.
And I really, I really respect that in terms of a choice by an app to say, you know, we're not going to have you play four hours of this or five hours for this. Here's 20 minutes and then go outside and play.
Kelly Paredes: [00:53:23] Yup. Speaking of play, it's Sunday evening
Sean Tibor: [00:53:26] Yeah. All right. Everybody go outside and play. All right. Tomorrow's a new day, but for now, go outside and play. Recharge your batteries, keep your students engaged, and we will talk to you soon. So for teaching Python, this is 
Sean signing off.