Going hybrid during Covid-19

It’s pretty certain that most teachers will be doing some form of online teaching in the coming academic year. It may be a hybrid, a blended or an exclusively online approach; it may be synchronous or asynchronous or a combination of both. Whatever happens, I think you will agree with me that we are now in a better position than where we were back in March when teachers, administrators and managers were thrown in at the deep end and had to switch to online teaching almost overnight. So despite the challenges and insecurities that this pandemic is still generating for all of us, this time we can do more intentional planning.

On the 28th of July, I gave a session for ALL London (Association for Language Learning) & TiLT (Technology in Language Teacher) organised by the amazing Helen Myers and Joe Dale.

Many language educators from around the world came along and we explored:

• possible scenarios for hybrid learning and what schools will be like in the next academic year in order to be better able to position ourselves and find creative solutions.
• the pedagogies of hybrid learning; how they can inform our decisions and why it is wrong to just take a face-to-face pedagogy and try to fit it into an online learning framework.
• the technologies that we will need for hybrid learning
• a sample activity using an interactive tool – Wooclap – aimed at fostering interaction, digital literacies and language learning.

Helen and Joe were amazing hosts and the teachers attending were really interactive and engaged. I enjoyed every minute of it and I think this is obvious in the recording that you will see below.

NOTE: If you want to watch an updated version of this, check the IATEFL British Council opening plenary I gave The hybrid classroom. Dilemmas, choices and solutions on the 4th of October. Find it on the British Council website here.

Also, please check Helen Myers’ write-up for the webinar chat and zoomfies – which are the new selfies in times of COVID-19; also known as group screenshots of group meetings on Zoom 🙂 

And here is the link to future and past webinars of the TiLT series – a really great resource for language educators looking for support and ideas. Bookmark and enjoy! 

Zoomfie at the end of the session with language educators from all around the world. By Helen Myers.

And here is the most well-received slide. I’m wondering why! 

Here some tweets capturing the session. Many thanks to all Twitterati!

Big thanks to @SophiaMav for delivering her brilliantly researched and perfectly timed presentation about hybrid learning. Her reassuring style and structured approach were much appreciated by attendees and her ideas should inform planning for the new academic year #mfltwitterati

— Joe Dale (@joedale) July 28, 2020

A very reassuring, totally spot on and a must see for ALL educators in this new era! Thank you @SophiaMav for sharing your wisdom and showcasing @wooclap and @HelenMyers and @joedale for organising once again such a useful CPD! pic.twitter.com/7tQ6E0lCIG

— Swavesey MFL From Home (@mfl_swavesey) July 28, 2020

Very interested in @SophiaMav research this year into Emergency Teaching following a call which garnered over 1,000 respondents. Overwhelming majority (91%) had never taught online before #covid19 – the first amazing stat from her survey. Building a plane while flying it, indeed! pic.twitter.com/K7LW3wFeBt

— Phil Longwell (@teacherphili) July 29, 2020

I agree … Sophia’s presentation would be a great starting point for managers to use when planning for an uncertain future, for ideas and for giving common language to use for discussion. [Version 2 – spelling corrected!]

— HelenMyers (@HelenMyers) July 28, 2020

Please use this citation to refer to the session:

Mavridi, S. (2020). Going hybrid during Covid-19. [Online presentation]. ALL London & TiLT. Retrieved from (add link).