What if . . . . a school had to close temporarily....?

If a school this size had to close for a week or two, what would need to be taken into consideration? I've given it some thought since this Coetail Course 3 started and during the coming days will detail some of the thoughts and concerns I've pondered during this course. I will start writing this as a series of questions I have been considering. I hope to respond to some of these questions if time permits.

What would need to be taken into consideration to optimize student learning?
If students learn in groups, how can stuff be shared by groups?
How would Face-to-Face (F2F) meetings occur?
How would group fora be conducted?
Blended classrooms – is this a skill all students should experience anyway?

Would the closure be complete or partial? Could the school be closed by division? Would the administration allow teachers to conduct courses from off-site, the Americas, Hua Hin, home, or a vacation spot and can instruction be effective from those locations?

How would teachers (and students) best communicate with each other?

Should teachers give students regualar, clearly-scheduled times when they will be available?

What would teacher of student (and supervisor of teacher) assessment look like?

Which applications would be most relevant for which courses (and communications)?
Podcast, embedded video, PantherNet chat, Wikispaces, Movie Maker, all the present applications on the PantherNet minimum list.

Would there be reliable service and access for all stakeholders?

Should teachers now be selecting units they lend themselves best to blended classroom instruction and shoule teachers be preparing for this instruction now?

Should we get the entire ISB community (students, teachers, admin, Ed Tech, Board, and parents) to buy into this concept now, so we are prepared when the day arrives? and Should we be trial running some aspects of this kind of education now?

If some teachers are not prepared to run such a class, would it jeopardize the tech savvy teachers from being able to continue with their classes?

What is the best use of time with both individual student issues and groups of students?

How can teachers protect themselves from being constantly "on call"? Would an eight-hour work day be respected by the community? Could teachers set schedules for the time they will maintain contact? Could students work on schedules from the other side of the globe?

Would it take so much time to prepare an online lesson, or gather and comment on students' submitted work, or dealing with individual commmunications that such a course would not be feasible? Would the demands on student time increase significantly?

What would be an effective activity for students to blog to the rest of the group? The assignment I gave today: Having students read three Research Questions we developed in class, individually write the dependent and independent variables, and as a group write the key and lesser controlled variables and how they would be measured and controlled, might work as an activity. Students certainly could learn from each other. But would the weaker students find this a way to lay low? And how could the teacher help these weaker students become activated to contribute *more* than they usually do? I normally would use classtime for them to share. Maybe some students would be rejuvenated to learn in this new environment.

All students are going to have to get over the concept of being right or wrong – all of us are learning. Maybe I need to break students in a bit with this learning online.