Educators are sometimes absent from their classroom. Professional Development, personal days, sick days, emergencies can all cause a teacher to be absent. We need to make sure that our room and lessons are organized so that a substitute can easily run the class and find things.

Labeling things in your room is a good idea so that another teacher or the substitute can find things. While you may think your students know where everything is, they don't always. I have signs and labels all over the place to help the students, and anyone else, find things. I have a sign near the door with labeled pictures showing where things are in my room, including sub plans, objectives, reference books, and more.


Have your substitute plans available in your room. We have our plans in folders in the office, but I have a copy of my emergency plans laminated on my front lab bench so that they are easily found. I also have signs pointing to where the emergency student work can be found in the room. It also has the class rules, my schedule, emergency instructions, and other information on it. I printed it in color to highlight certain things, and even have a picture showing exactly where in the room the actual assignments/work is. Many of the science teachers email each other when we are absent so that we can check on the class and assist the sub.


There are posters in the room with the class web site, blog sites, and my email address posted so that students, and the sub, can find these resources when needed. The 7 student computers in my room also allow me to assign more than just worksheets when I am absent.

When I know I am going to be absent, I leave instructions printed with the assignments on my front desk, and written on the white board. I let the teacher next door know that I am going to be out. We all check up on each other's classes and assist the subs.

Technology can also help. When I was out with a back injury one year, knee surgery one year (the perils of being a Paramedic) and on jury duty, I was able to communicate with my students, my colleagues and even have the students do work that I assigned from home or the courthouse.

What do you do to organize your room for when you are absent?

See the related articles below for more information.

Related:

Backup plans - some tips for teachers

How Technology Has Helped during Injuries and absences

Technology to the Rescue while I'm out for jury duty

I'm a huge user of Google products for personal and work uses. I'm also someone who likes to have my own backup of data. There are also people who want to take their data with them if they are leaving Google for other services.

Google Takeout lets you download your data from a variety of Google's services to your computer. You can do all of your data or select the services to download data from. Services include +1's, Buzz, Circles, Contacts, Docs, Knol, Picasa Web Albums, your Profile, your Google+ Stream, and Google Voice.

You select "all", or individually select services, and then click "Create Archive" and it will download a zip file of your data. The time and size will obviously depend on how much data you have.

Security Note: Since Google Takeout involves your personal information, we'll sometimes take extra care to protect you by asking you to verify your password even though you're already signed in. 

You can also export your Docs in Docs, by selecting the documents you want, click "more", then "download", "all items" and the formats you want them downloaded. You can also use GDoc backup which will backup all of your Docs to your computer.

Notice that blogs are not included in the list above. To download a copy of your Blogger blog, go to "settings", "other" "export blog" and export it. You also have the ability to export your contacts, bookmarks, and more from each application's setting menu.



Related:

Google for Educators Resources

Why I Use Google's Products as an Educator

Every teacher is taught that back up plans are a must. Things change constantly in education and there are a variety of factors that can make plans change - computer breaks, internet goes out, file is corrupted, forgot your flash drive at home, you finish a lesson early with a class, your class has very low attendance due to a school activity or event (like AP testing, prom, etc), lesson runs long, students don't understand the material, class is interrupted by a fire drill.

To deal with these issues, teachers must have back up plans ready to go and be flexible and organized. Here are some tips and resources for backup plans.

1. Computer breaks - if possible, have a laptop or netbook available for use. Be aware of any laptops in the building that you could quickly use or even an empty classroom you could move to for that period. You should also have your lessons and resources available in paper form. Even though I am 99% online, I have a print out of my lesson plans, lesson notes, master copies of any packets or worksheets, and print outs of PowerPoint slides. If you have a smartphone, you can always access your notes and files that way and then write on the board. (pretty much same advice if your projector dies).

2. Internet goes down - see computer breaks. If you have a laptop available, having the ability to connect to the internet in other ways is a great back up too. You may have a plan for your laptop with a wireless company or be able to access public WiFi or, like me, access the WiFi in the area from my cable provider. You can also use many smartphones as a WiFi hotspot for your laptop.

For both 1 and 2 I can access all of my files and information from any computer, laptop, and even my smartphone. I use web based services for everything: online file storage and backup, Google Docs for files, Evernote for lesson plans and resources, and email, Google Sites, Blogger, and more.

3. File corrupted - have backups of your files on a backup system

4. Forgot Flash drive at home - don't use a flash drive. Use an online system instead (or at least also use an online system) to access to your files from anywhere.

5. Finish lesson early - have some kind of material to work with if you finish your lesson early. Going to the next lesson doesn't always work depending on the time remaining. You could show a short video about the topic you just finished, you can have a classroom discussion about the topic, have students write a short paragraph about what they learned today (and anything that surprised them).

6. Low attendance - many times there are school activities such as AP testing or class trips that can leave your class looking barren. I always have some kind of extra activity that I can do with the students that are there. I don't always want to continue on with a lesson and leave a huge percentage of the class behind. I usually have them do a mini-project or some kind of mini-lab (whether hands-on or virtual). I may also just have a discussion with them about different topics, including college plans and how they are doing in their classes.

7. Lesson runs long - Sometimes a lesson takes longer with one class than with another due to the student make up, discussion, or other issues that may interrupt the lesson. I try to be flexible when planning and give myself time in the plans for some classes to take longer. This also means that if I want to keep the classes in sync, I may have to use some extra activities, like I described in #6, to stagger another class. The activities are always relevant though.

8. Class interruptions - don't get flustered. Just come back to class and get started again. You can use the ideas above in #7 to deal with the fact that you lost class time and therefore your lesson may "run long".

9. Students don't understand the material - have a different idea or method to teach the material. A video, activity, or just a different approach can be used to help the students. I have extra videos, activities, textbooks, and web sites that I share with my students who are struggling. I also have time after school every day that they can come and see me and get extra help.

10. Adapt and overcome - issues will happen. Just go with the flow and put your backup plan into effect.

Related:
Advice to New Graduates that are entering the Teaching Profession
Survival Tips for Educators and Presenters