Each time a student is absent for more than a day or so, I get an email asking that I send missed work to the front office for pickup so the student can catch up. I usually fire off a copy of the slides in handout form and a little note, and go on about my business. In talking with a few other teachers, I have come to the realization that my little note to my absent students (always handwritten by the way) is a bit different than others’. Here is an actual note, without the student name at the top. I wrote this just this morning, and I thought you might like to see it!
I hope you can read that ok, I wasn’t sure of the size. In case it is illegible, here is what it says…
“Spend some time on the Moodle if you can. You have a test on Friday, which you can take from home. You’ll see it in the Moodle on Friday, called Huge Test. It covers Colors, Numbers, and Days & Months. All the slides are online. Let me know how I can help! Mr. Craft”
I’ve been thinking about Alan November’s scenario of bird flu hitting our area and then no one being able to come to school.
Me, got it covered.
I am saying this not to be a punk, but I am using lots of cool tools to keep my kids up-to-date when they are at home.
Maybe a future post about what tools I use inside my moodle and on our class website, but not now. And please, spare me the discussion of authentic assessments 
, tests serve a good purpose and are to help learn vocabulary, a core function of any foreign language. We do lots of other asssessments, too!
So, how’s my note?
That’s a great note; saw the “learning from home” before I had even gotten to the fourth line, nice! I agree that with a great system like Moodle and a few other tools you could teach effectively from a distance, but it would be very difficult to teach passionately (I’m all about the visual learning experience) unless you were able to hook your students up with videocasts and/or webcams
Great note Chris!
I usually send something similar via e-mail. At this point I’ve got most of my students (and parents) trained to check our various online resources for any missed work or lesson updates. I am always impressed when they come back from being absent totally on task with the rest of the class, all assignments completed – but with no note home from me!
Wait til they tell you that ol’ stand by. It’s not that the dog ate the homework anymore. Now’s it’s my computer blew up. We have ten blows in the last week. It’s just amazing!