BEAUMONT, Texas — Virtual learning is about to begin for a lot of districts across Southeast Texas and some Beaumont ISD teachers are getting creative.
"It's changing the world of education, I'm excited," Odom Academy teacher Rachel Gunther-Street said.
Gunther-Street, who teaches 7th grade Texas History, says many teachers are enjoying this new opportunity.
She along with many others have created a virtual classroom, customized to fit their curriculum.
Joycelyn Fontenot, an algebraic reasoning teacher at Beaumont United, says staff have been learning all about teaching online since school shut down in March.
"It's tedious, and it's a lot of work but it's also a lot of fun," Fontenot told 12News. "It gives us that creativity that we have been longing for so long. It has definitively brought out the best in us."
With help from her daughter, Fontenot put together a video showing her unique design of her virtual classroom which pretty much mirrors her class on campus so students feel more comfortable.
Other teachers have created different backgrounds for different lessons and all seem to be having fun with it.
"This is so cool, honestly it's so cool because kids can't lose their journals now," Gunther-Street told 12News. "They can't lose their notebooks, they're saved in their Google Drive."
Along with her virtual classroom, Gunther-Street also created a "scavenger hunt" room for students to help navigate through different resources.
"So that they can learn how to navigate Google Slide, how to click on links that take them to the syllabus or classroom expectations or to the assignment for the day," Gunther-Street said.
She tells 12News the difficult thing for staff this school year will be finding news ways to interact with students.
"For us educators, it's going to be much more important to work on creating those relationships because they're not going to come as naturally as they would face-to-face," Gunther-Street said.
Fontenot says she's found ways for her virtual classroom to be compatible with any device.
"In case a child can't get in contact with a computer or it's harder to get that type of device, they'll be able to use it on a phone," Fontenot said.
Fontenot tells 12News virtual learning shouldn't just be used as a substitute for not being able to teach on campus.
"Even when we go back to face-to-face, I'm going to continue integrating technology into my classroom," Fontenot said.
On Thursday, the Beaumont ISD Board voted to approve a four-week virtual learning extension to the start of school which would run to October 12.
Superintendent Dr. Shannon Allen says although there's now an option to make the first eight weeks of school strictly online, that decision has not been made. (As it stands, students & staff will be online for first four weeks)
