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"When school buildings across the country closed their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, many teachers had about a weekend's notice-if that-to gather up their belongings and reimagine their classrooms from their homes. The hurried nature of the move to remote learning meant many educators never got a chance to hug their students one more time, to look them in the eyes and ask if they are OK or to tell them goodbye. Though most teachers are checking in with their students virtually, via Zoom, Google Classroom or some other video-calling mechanism, it's not the same as face-to-face interaction. After going from spending hours a day together to hardly any face-to-face time at all, the reality is teachers really miss their students. That was one of the most emphatic answers teachers gave when EdSurge asked 15 of them, What is one thing about your job you wish the public knew? For many, the "one thing" is that they really love their students, and during this time of isolation and uncertainty, they miss them a lot."

This much-maligned question seems so appropriate for education's recent history. All that was normal, everything that was routine, all of our structures, have been turned upside down and hurled into the wind of COVID19. From having spoken of a future dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), we have found ourselves living in it. Innovation and creativity became the new normal as we "Apollo 13" schooling into a model that met the demands of emergency remote learning. The pressure, the workload, the demands on our time and the cognitive load have all been immense, and so it seems fitting to ask "Are we there yet?".

"You learned how to Zoom, or Hangout, or Team up. You read all the quick tips about emergency remote teaching. You recorded your lectures or gathered via video call with however many students you could reach each week. You pivoted, shifted and, let's be real, maybe stumbled into a makeshift version of online education. At last, final grades-or pass/fail marks-are turned in. Congratulations, you made it through the virtual semester. Now what?"

In times when we taught face-to-face, some of these challenges would be overcome through the use of concrete materials, at least with younger students. Unfortunately, it is common for the use of concrete materials to decline as students grow older. Fortunately, this pattern, and the prejudiced beliefs on which it is founded, are today being questioned.

"Green screen technology (also known as chroma keying) offers so many engaging opportunities for students to learn.  It's pretty easy to do, it can be done on a very low budget, it works in lots of subject areas and grade levels, and it's even possible while teaching remotely. In my most recent podcast interview (listen or read the transcript above), I talked with teacher educator Justine Bruyère about the why and the how of green screen videos."