Tackle Distance Learning with your Kiddos – Advice from Doce-Parents

• 4 min read

How Docebo parents are engaging their kids via online learning & e-learning during COVID-19Never have we experienced more face time with our children than now. While it’s novel to see more of our little ones in the afternoons and for bedtime, having them at home almost 24/7 now is a new challenge for most of us, and we’re quickly running out of ideas to entertain them.

As we approach week four of working from home, we wondered how our community of Docebian parents have established a culture of distance learning from home (LFH) with their kiddos.

We’re taking a brief intermission to check out how our colleagues are transferring our company’s vision to their very own home classrooms. Feel free to try these out with your kids to see what they like best!


How to go about “distance learning”

For our Doce-kids and little ones globally, online and distance learning has become the new normal, and it’s going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Parents are navigating this strange space between parenting and teaching in their own home.

The grand effort to make LFH happen has certainly required a village, as they say. It’s taken a lot of technology sprinkled with creativity to keep us all connected, and our Docebo family has given some insight about what their kids are learning and how they are staying engaged.

What our parents at Docebo have emphasized is so crucial to make remote learning happen is establishing a solid structure. Setting up a work space for your students that is empowering and conducive of virtual productivity is key. One of our great employees, Muzz Salim, shared with us that he and his wife set up a classroom for their daughter in their dining room with visuals of numbers and letters resembling a true classroom setting. More recently she’s been learning about rabbits and has loved her setup!

Establishing work hours for not only yourself , but your little learners is also high priority. While we are running conference calls and budget meetings, our children are submersed in learning decimals, colors, letters, new words, all by e-learning. The internet has powered this pivot we’ve all had to make, and we’ve never before been more thankful to have the e-learning tools that we do.

Here are some tools our parents and kids have been using at home:


What are they learning when the “school day” ends?

Our Docebo parents, like everyone else, are adjusting to this new normal where they function as both the teachers and parents. When asking our super moms and dads how they are mixing things up when virtual classrooms adjourn each day, we got an overwhelmingly similar response from our parents.

They are taking this time to teach their children useful skills, new hobbies, and crafts that they can use to occupy their time. Instead of stretching themselves thin trying to constantly entertain, our parents are infusing as many teachable moments into this time at home together as possible.

Here are some things our young learners have tried out in the past four weeks that you might want to try with your little ones too.

Bon appetit: Our little Gordon Ramsays are out here learning to hard boil and scramble eggs, make PBJ’s, and have crafted up (no pun intended) some pretty fierce macaroni and cheese. Some of our Docebo family has gone a step further by playing out waitressing or hosting with them to get them in the practice of working and counting currency!

Who needs Bill Nye? (just kidding, we love Bill): A popular event in Docebo households these days, though requiring some patience and cleanup, is some good old fashioned slime workshopping. This little science lab is easy and as sparkly as you like. Noel Miller of HR notes that her little one has actually attained “pro-level” slime making status and absolutely loves it.

Virtual trivia: We all miss our wine nights with friends and play dates with the neighbor’s kids. At Docebo, we coordinated a family friendly virtual trivia via Zoom where our kids could learn a thing or two, and where we could all enjoy being back together again strictly to have fun.

Storytime on Facetime: Social distancing makes it challenging to visit family members and keep those intimate traditions going that we value so much. One of our Docebo colleagues, Emily Dukes, likes to facilitate a storytime for her nephew and his Grandpa and Grandma on Facetime where they can all come together at the end of the day and enjoy a tender moment. With older ones, we’ve seen great success facilitating virtual book clubs amongst their friends with young adult literature to keep kids engaged, learning, and entertained!

Homebound hoops: For your athletes of the house, our parents have challenged their children to create their own indoor basketball hoops or putt putt courses! We love watching them work through problem solving skills and develop their own methods to the madness while also enjoying the sports they love.

Domestic bliss: What better time is there than to incentivize learning by teaching our young roommates how to care for themselves and their space? Our Docebian parents have used this time to teach their kids how to operate basic household machinery like vacuums, electric screwdrivers, blenders, etc. By teaching kids to be self sufficient, we are teaching them to help and care for themselves!

Online creations: We have had some parents even encourage their children to take what they love and make even more out of it. From creating homemade podcasts for discussions about favorite video games to starting food blogs and (monitored) YouTube channels, our Docebo parents are focussed on making sure their kids are doing what they love and challenging them to pursue it even further.


Takeaways

What is important here is that we foster an environment that makes learning feel good (for all of us) whether it’s academic or recreational. This challenge we’ve been faced with is an opportunity to challenge ourselves, our children, and our teachers to work as a unit in order to make learning happen and to make it a success.

Parents around the world have taken ownership of this incredible initiative to temporarily shift learning to a virtual space. We thank them and applaud them as they navigate these times and continue to spark joy and curiosity to a new generation of lifelong learners.