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As schools and organisations move to remote education, there are potential gaps in our professional learning of which we should be aware. While many of us are discovering fresh opportunities for online and remote professional learning through podcasts, webinars and online courses, one of the most significant aspects of our professional learning has been curtailed thanks to social distancing.

iTALC is a use- and powerful didactical tool for teachers. It lets you view and control other computers in your network in several ways. It supports Linux and Windows 2000/XP (Vista support will come) and it even can be used transparently in mixed environments! In contrast to widely used commercial equivalent software, iTALC is free! This means you do not have to pay for expensive licenses or things like that. Furthermore the source-code is freely available and you're free in changing the software to fit your needs as long as you respect the terms of iTALC's license (GPL). Freedom in two ways! Features iTALC has been designed for usage in school. Therefore it offers a lot of possibilities to teachers, such as * see what's going on in computer-labs by using overview mode and make snapshots * remote-control computers to support and help other people * show a demo (either in fullscreen or in a window) - the teacher's screen is shown on all student's computers in realtime * lock workstations for moving undivided attention to teacher * send text-messages to students * powering on/off and rebooting computers per remote * remote logon and logoff and remote execution of arbitrary commands/scripts * home-schooling - iTALC's network-technology is not restricted to a subnet and therefore students at home can join lessons via VPN-connections just by installing iTALC client Furthermore iTALC is optimized for usage on multi-core systems (by making heavy use of threads). No matter how many cores you have, iTALC can make use of all of them.

With the emerging threat of COVID19 and the closure of schools, teachers are scrambling to move to online learning environments. This will bring with it a myriad of challenges the short time frame is not going to help the situation. While we are fortunate that there are many technological solutions for the provision of remote learning, the more significant challenges will revolve around how we interact with our learners.

It seems that thanks to COVID19, educators, parents and students are in a rush. It seems the rush started moments after the decision was made to promote social distancing by offering remote learning. From quality learning in classrooms focused on deep learning we shifted into top gear. Packets of work were prepared, online tools rapidly expanded, new options for content delivery were examined and quickly deployed. We wanted to make sure that our students would be kept busy. Parents wanted their children to be busy. - Maybe slow looking is the solution?

In this time of COVID19 and remote learning or emergency distance learning the value of encouraging students to investigate their questions should not be forgotten.

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?".

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.

At some point, we will need to pause. Lift our heads up and survey the scenery in this new world. Then, let us hope that we ask the right questions. Making time and space for a moment of pause and reflection will be crucial if it becomes clear that this is more than a brief fling with online learning.