More than 150 K-12 schools in the Houston Metro area are shuttered because of worries about spreading the coronavirus, affecting at least a million students, most of whom will be asked to shift to online learning.

Monica Savage has been encouraging educators and corporate learning teams to include swift transition to remote learning as part of their emergency preparedness, business continuity, and disaster recovery plans.

“Running a classroom digitally is much harder than bringing an adult workplace online,” says Savage, President of Obsidian Learning, “and that can make it difficult to transfer unique lesson plans into a digital environment.”

In recent days, teams of educators and technology specialists are ramping up not only to deep-clean schools during spring break, but also meet the challenges of bringing the classroom home. When done right, students will benefit from the blended-learning approach, strengthening both the social and educational fabric during periods of disruption and beyond. Savage recommends educators take a systematic approach: Analyzing the existing curriculum and delivery options; Designing remote delivery, with a focus on student-engagement; Enabling teachers to quickly plug existing lesson plans into remote delivery, including robust interactive activities and effective knowledge checks.

“This involves more than just an online webinar approach,” she says.

Houston-based Obsidian Learning supports some of the largest companies in the world with a full slate of learning development capabilities and ranks in the Top 10 e-learning providers by eLearning Industry. For more information on Obsidian Learning’s Rapid Conversion to Remote Learning tips: https://www.obsidianlearning.com/campaigns/rapid-conversion-to-remote-learning/