In March 2020, every province and territory in Canada had declared a state of emergency due to COVID (Canadian Museum of Health Care, 2021). Lockdown was announced and schools were closed in Canada, I was very confused and scared like the rest of the world. All public spaces including parks were closed and we used to live in the basement apartment at that time. My son has autism and he was in senior kindergarten at that time. He had high needs at that age. 

In September 2020, when schools planned and decided to go online, it was a different experience (CBC Radio-Canada, 2020).

 Initially learning experiences were posted on the google classroom. I used to help my son to explain to him what was written on there and actually did activities with him. The activities were designed so that they can be understood easily by the parents like me and required materials that were easily found at home.

My son and daughter having sensory play as one of the learning experiences back in September 2020. I created the experience for them as I read it from the google classroom.

Figure 1. Photo of my children doing sensory play

Note. Photo taken by author, September 19, 2020

As I learned from the course content that most great learning happens in groups and collaboration is the stuff of growth, I realized it was ture when I experienced it myself (Royal Society of Arts, 2010).

 When my son, my younger daughter and me were learning a concept together through google classroom, it was more fun and easier to understand. We all would play, draw, write and learn together.

Since my son has autism, it was hard for him to sit for the whole class time, his teachers allowed him to attend only half an hour one-on-one session with his educational assistant on google classroom. 

They later extended it to one hour session everyday as my son showed more interest and got familiar with this new way of learning.

His class teacher even made videos especially for my son to explain the concept in easier and more fun way for him to understand. She would upload it to the google classroom and post work that I would help my son to try to attempt and complete it. The focus was never on perfection but on efforts.

Figure 2. Son using dots to relate to numbers

Note. Photo taken by author, Decemebr 2020