Winnipeg School Division taking a practice run at remote learning

Winnipeg School Division practices remote learning CTV's Mike Arsenault reports on how and why the Winnipeg School Division is practicing remote learning.

WINNIPEG — It’s been said practice makes perfect, and the Winnipeg School Division (WSD) is putting that theory to the test.

The division is organizing remote learning practice runs in the classroom.

Acting Director of Research, Planning and Technology for WSD, Tony Marchione said the school practice is designed to work out troubleshooting issues that could occur when trying to learn from home.

“We have students and teachers run through what it would look like if there was a shift in the pandemic level to level red, and students were learning remotely from home.”

Marchione said the division uses a variety of online learning tools like Seesaw, Google Classroom, and Microsoft Teams.

He said the pandemic level can shift at a moment’s notice, and they wanted to be prepared.

“A practice like we would practice a fire drill once a month,” said Marchione.

“This is important, to have kids practice and make sure that they’re not forgetting their passwords and make sure that they’re remembering how to access the assignments.”

He said they learned from the Hanover School Division that the shift to pandemic level red can happen with a day's notice, and they wanted their division to be as ready as possible.

The division said they had a lot of questions about remote learning from parents last spring, and it hopes these practice runs with students will help clarify the process for the parents as well.

CTV asked the province if there’s a plan to make remote learning mandatory, it said no decision has been made at this time.