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Several people I know have suggested Class Dojo. Another program some hagwons are using is called 'Zoom'. I know very little about both

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It looks like my province will not be doing live classes but content/task-based learning. I'm pretty excited to create some new content instead of being the game show teacher 

Some info IF your school uses EBS and you are doing the online classes.  EBS does not do the LIVE classes, basically, you make a video and then upload it (your co-teacher will be good for this) to the EBS site.  To upload videos to EBS, they can be a maximum of 400mbs, so if your video is bigger than that then you have to chop it into two or three videos and then uploaded separately. 

My school made a timetable for students and teachers.  Which is for 7 periods a day.  I was in a panic as I thought I'd be teaching my usual 18 classes (1st grade x 6 and 2nd grade x 12) but simply I make a video that all the level 1 students (170 of them) log into on 2nd period on Tuesday.   Then after my class, they get a 10-minute break before the 3rd period of maths.  So your classes are stand-alone classes.  For my 2nd grade, I have two classes, one is a free choice and then one is kind of textbook-based.  So in all, I just have to make three videos a week, which to me seems fairly simple.

Thoughts on this as it isn't just 50 minutes of me talking.  On EBS, it is possible for students to do some writing/multiple choice questions during your class.  So I was thinking for my first class for 1st grade (I've not met them yet) I would do...

-A self-introduction of me for ten minutes while the students watch.
-Then, I will ask some questions to see if the students remembered what I said.  (This is the online forms)  But I give them time in my video to do this, maybe ten minutes.  You can check this after the students had time OR they submit the answers for you to check later.
-Then for the next part, as I haven't met these students yet, I want to find out about them.  So I write some sentences on the board about me 'In my free time, I love swimming' 'I wish I could run 100 meters in 10 seconds' and things like that.  Then tell them to do it, so I write some sentence starters on the board.
-Then online the students write three or four sentences about themselves. 
-You give them time to do this (As it's a video, you could have the screen with the sentence starters and some music playing with a count down clock for their time) Then they submit these for checking, but not in real-time.
-Then final bit 'Well done!'  'Keep Going!'  Etc.

The way I see it, I make three videos then I have a lot of time for checking students' work. 

It doesn't seem as daunting as I thought.  I suppose if you teach middle or elementary then you may only have to make three/four videos a week, which to me seems fine. 

I'll get my creative head on and see how to make this interesting for students as I suppose other teachers will just lecture for 50 minutes.   

Appreciate the info Ronnie - you're a champ.

So does EBS have a ciriculuum to guide the topics you're teaching in your videos? Or are you winging it with your own topics?

So does EBS have a ciriculuum to guide the topics you're teaching in your videos? Or are you winging it with your own topics?

I think that EBS has all the curriculum needed, but would be different to the textbooks that we use in school, as all schools have different topics in different orders in their textbooks, but essentially teaching the same thing eventually.  My high school teachers use EBS as extra classwork for students when they've taught them the text from the book.  We study the textbook, but then the teachers will give extra work for students to do from EBS.  I'm sure also that EBS is used to broadcast listening tests in elementary/middle and high, so it's kind of central to most things that go on in public schools.  Which is why it seems the easiest option for teachers to upload their online teaching with students (it's the only format, mind).  It's going to take a bit of getting used to, as was heard today by most teachers complaining about it.

I think it's much harder for homeroom teachers as they have all the admin to do and making sure that all students know when to log in, how to get the classes etc.  I think originally it's going to be tough.  But the EBS site seems geared as all the schools are listed, then the homeroom teachers make their homeroom classes as they showed them how to do today. 

I can teach what I want for my first-grade class and then for one of my second-grade ones.  The other second-grade class is loosely based on the textbook.

Maybe this isn't new to some people here but I found that you can narrate over a PPT and then save and play it as a video, which is kind of cool.

If you open your existing PPT, and then click on 'file' and then click on 'export' and then there is an option for 'create a video'

the bar that comes across shows the quality (which 480p would be the smallest file)

Then in the next drop-down box, click on it and then choose the third option 'recorded timings and narrations'. 

Then there is a small box that pops up, that asks you what you want to record, and then you click to start recording.  When you've finished on one slide you can click to go to the next.  When you've finished it will save it. 

I suppose for those of us who have a lot of PPTs made from your textbooks, this will be good as it means you've not on camera but you can narrate through the PPT.

Apologies if people already knew this, but I didn't and think it'd be very useful and a good 'in' to the class. 

Sorry again for a lot of posting, especially if it's not relevant (EBS-wise) but after two and a half months of 'taking it easy', I've too much energy and now I just think 'let's have it!'.

Apologies if people already knew this, but I didn't and think it'd be very useful and a good 'in' to the class. 

Sorry again for a lot of posting, especially if it's not relevant (EBS-wise) but after two and a half months of 'taking it easy', I've too much energy and now I just think 'let's have it!'.

Your explanations have been incredibly helpful. I didn't know any of these things and was very worried about starting online classes as I've never done it before. I haven't found out how my school will run the online classes yet, but the information you've given us has really put my mind at ease and made the prospect of teaching online much less daunting. Now I have some ideas about how I can handle this situation, even if my school uses a different system than EBS.  Seriously, thank you so much for all the information! 

My school is doing pre-recorded, thank Christ.

Also, I'm a bit of a hit because I brought in my filming equipment. haha

it almost feels schools want pre-recorded just so they can show off their videos to other schools. style over substance.

also, are other subjects doing pre-recorded videos? well, hey guess what? only the english dept is at my school. other departments can just set some worksheetsand d a short live lesson. jesus christ

On day two of our training, some more things became apparent.  I noticed some teachers have already loaded multiple videos onto some class schedules, but they are all other videos off the internet that will teach the students.  Our teachers just upload the worksheets, which are probably already made by someone else.  I was sitting behind the PE teacher and noticed he was watching a youtube clip of some badminton coach teaching a student how to hit the shuttlecock.  Isn't this cheating?  Or laziness?  My co-teacher had uploaded her first video and worksheet, and when I asked about her making a video already, she said it was the textbook video and won't be actually 'doing' videos.  Then when I asked another English teacher she said the textbook videos are really good quality so they'll be using them.     I bet some of the really competitive school principals will make the teachers do them properly and as for live classes, then they can't get away with posting someone elses lecture.   

For the thread part, I use windows movie maker 2012, which I find really easy as it's quite basic to use and free. 

https://windows-movie-maker.en.softonic.com/

You can upload videos, cut them up, attach together, play audio/music thorough a video, add text during a video.  Basis, yes.  But it does the basics which are most important for me.  I'm sure Quentin TarantinCO2 uses a more sophisticated one...

They still haven't figured things out at my school, but everyone has agreed that we're not doing live or precorded videos of ourselves, lol. They all say it's because they don't think it'll be worth the amount of work and effort that would have to go into all of that when we can just use what's already been provided by the internet and textbook publishers. Also, they want to test students using more task-based methods and assignments.

I think the unspoken reason for that, though, is that no one wants to put videos of themselves up online for students to download/record (we have some problem students who absolutely would use them for evil doing), and also because we have a lot of teachers who aren't very tech savvy. They just don't have the time to learn how to use the equipment plus edit the videos to make them look at least halfway decent. It's a clusterfuck of errors and learning curves that no one wants to deal with right now. Plus, there's a legitimate concern that not all students will be able to access that kind of content. Some of them don't even have computers and will have to rely on their smartphones to get everything done. 

Might be different if we were a more competitive school or a high school, though. For now, they just want to take a step-by-step approach, see how the students handle everything, then go from there.