BARRIGADA, GUAM, March 30. – In response to the COVID-19 virus lockdown and closure of schools, The Guam Department of Education announced the launch of its website to support distance/online learning on March 30, 2020.

GDOE’s Home Learning Resource Page contains resources for teachers, parents, and students of all ages. The website acts as a hub to navigate between the different school websites as well as other supplementary materials for parents to lead instruction at home.

Weekly instruction, which began on April 6, 2020, is supported with opportunities for teacher feedback.

“We realize that there is a wide variety of learning needs that have to be addressed during this time and we want to give all our students the ability to pursue education and practice their academic and social skills while at home,” said Superintendent Jon Fernandez, in a press release.

In addition to the GDOE website, educators, parents and students are making use of the many resources available to them to support distance learning, such as Mary Anne M. Angeles, middle school instructional math coach and pre-AP math teacher.

Angeles uses her Google Classroom, email, school website, and hard copies for her students. Many of these school websites link to the GDOE Distance Learning site.

Teachers like Angeles use their content folder to post weekly assignments that can be accessed via the internet or via hard copies that can be picked up at the Grab and Go lunch sites.

Angeles sees many advantages to distance learning. She has more freedom with her schedule, her students have access to the content both online and offline at all times, and she enjoys the ease of interacting with students and parents via the internet.

Despite the convenience, distance learning has its downsides for educators like Angeles who prefer a more hands-on approach.

“I feel disappointed that I cannot help them the way I normally would do when in school. It feels different – kind of incomplete,” Angeles said.

The biggest issues that distance learning currently faces are that not every household has internet access to take full advantage of the online content. Also, because the school year has essentially ended most activities are for enrichment. This means there is little control over the ability to grade students or have them complete assignments.

Despite this, parents like Celia Dydasco are taking full advantage of distance learning and the GDOE site.

Her family has integrated a regimented school schedule at home for her fifth-grade son. They follow the order of his classes, regularly check in with the site, and have even tuned in for the various video lectures available to students.

“The only difference in our schedule is that we are all at home and can see what he’s doing,” Dydasco said.

Dydasco wishes that there would be more challenging content for the students, but her family has had an overall positive experience with the website and distance learning.