Dive Brief:

• Rather than forgoing the use of classroom technolgy when a teacher is sick and has to use a substitute, schools can take further advantage of their tech investment via a handful of steps suggested by eSchool News.
• Building a strong classroom culture where students are empowered to take responsibility is key to ensuring these efforts run smoothly and teacher sick days remain productive.
• Additionally, the use of a learning management system to set up and distribute assignments can help keep students and substitutes on track when a teacher is absent, as can giving students choice in their learning via options for independent assignments with detailed reflections of how they spent their time on that work.

Dive Insight:

The influx of classroom technology could soon make it so that entire days of learning aren't thrown away when a teacher is absent. Often, a teacher being sick means a bump in the road for learning progress being made at that time, as substitute teachers are often called in that morning, don't necessarily know the students, and may not have a clear picture of what students are (or should be) working on.

Of course, taking full advantage of classroom tech to alleviate the need for sick days will require administrators to ensure that, among other things, a greater deal of classroom management training is available to the substitute pool.

Sick days aren't the only "throwaway" days tech is disrupting. South Carolina recently launched a pilot in five districts aimed at instituting "eLearning" days when inclement weather disrupts the regular school schedule. South Carolina is far from the first state to look at tech as a resource for thawing out snow days, though their are still potential pitfalls to consider.