Virtual Learning @ Gow

Virtual Learning at Gow By: Rafael P.

The Gow School’s Virtual Learning program lets students and teachers use online learning to teach and learn.

Luke M. has been using the Virtual Learning since the beginning of the school year. I interviewed him to find out how the program worked for him.

Luke prepares himself for class by making sure his laptop is charged and he checks up on his connection to the network. He also makes sure that he has all his class materials so he is prepared to do whatever the teacher assigns the classes to do, even online. Luke claims that focusing during online classes isn't that difficult because he tries to remove all distractions and his mother checks up on him from time to time to keep him focused.

The advantages in virtual learning are that students can spend time with family, and students can even eat their own food from home. Virtual learning doesn't seem that bad because it's as if they are in class, just not physically. The only difference is that it's just online.

Of the challenges, Luke mentioned that lag was a big deal, and it was hard for him to hear

what the teacher is saying when the lag cuts the audio off sometimes. The lack of in-person teaching is also a challenge with Virtual Learning since it’s very different because students aren’t learning in the class.

Luke said that whenever he pretends to be physically at Gow, it helps him focus more on school. Luke is given motivation by his teachers and parents for online school to focus and the teachers get him involved in school.

The next person I interviewed was Mr. Poblocki. He mentioned several challenges they faced when developing the virtual learning program.

Rafael: How did you figure out a plan for virtual students?

Mr. Poblocki: Determining the final plan for virtual students took a lot of patience and a lot of work. We experimented with multiple different platforms before settling for the system that we have now. The main drivers for selecting a plan was technology that was easy to use for the

Economic Recovery By: Fritz O.

Due to COVID-19, businesses have had to close and layoff workers. Because of this, unemployment has soared through the roof. Back in early June, when the country was hit the hardest, 44.2 million people were unemployed at its peak, roughly 14.7% of the population. (This time last year unemployment was at 1.5 million: 17x more people unemployed one year later.) But that number has gone down. Four months later, the unemployment rate has dropped down to just over 26 million.

In December of 2007, the Great Recession was caused by the housing market crash. By 2009, 33,759,000 people had been laid off, that’s 11% of America’s population.

In 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic, America’s population was 106.9 million, and at the height of unemployment, 12.45 million people were unemployed. Harlan Ullman of Atlantic Council said, “Post-war recessions hit hard in 1919 and again in 1920, driving unemployment up to 11.7%.”

Due to factories closing and laying off people, the country wasn’t producing many goods makings the gross domestic product (GDP) go down. The Spanish flu resulted with a GDP drop of only 1.5% at its peak from the flu.

As America wrapped up WWI, it was still in factory mode, so even with the flu the number of factories help keep supplies running.

Fast forward to the Great Recession, the GDP fell 4.3% at its peak. Previously the GDP was 3.5% in 2005, then falling to -2.5%. Robert Rich of Federal Reserve History said, “The net worth of US households and nonprofit organizations fell from a peak of approximately $69 trillion in 2007 to a trough of $55 trillion in 2009.”

With the most recent economic fall due to Covid-19, the “Gross domestic product collapsed at a 32.9% annualized rate last quarter, the deepest decline in output since the government started keeping records in 1947,” according to R. Staff of Reuters.

Thankfully, that was the peak of the GDP collapse at 32.9%, but “Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP slumping at a 34.1% rate in the April-June quarter.” The outcome of the Covid-19 effect was less damaging to what economists’ thought was going to happen--so far.

A visual of how COVID-19 has affected the GDP of America so far compared to the GDP from the preceding years. / U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Used with permission.

Owners of Aurora Cinema in East Aurora used playful sayings on their marquee during the early months of the pandemic. / Aurora Cinema. Used with permission.

Theatres Closing From Pandemics By: Rafael P.

Schools, malls, restaurants, and other businesses closed due to COVID-19. But perhaps the slowest to repopen have been theatres.

In the beginning of October, theatres such as AMC and Regal announced that they would close once again. While movies were being delayed, the theatrical business has been financially suffering. All theatres closed because there weren’t as many movies being screened since they all were being delayed even further than expected. Most of the movies, such as Black Widow and James Bond, were rescheduled for next year instead of releasing this year, hoping that they would be shown on theatres after the pandemic ends.

John Fithian, who is the chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners, said, “If the studios continue postponing all their releases, the movie theatres aren’t going to be there for those postponed releases [...] 80 percent of the movies that were scheduled during our closed period have been postponed for future theatrical release and not taken to the home.”

Closing theatres due to illnesses and viruses isn’t anything new. Many illnesses have existed around the world for ages, and t has been common practice to close theatres temporarily for public safety to prevent the spread of sickness. According to a New Yorker article by Stephen Greenblatt, a respected Shakespeare professor at Harvard, Shakespeare wrote many plays during bouts of the plague, especially during some of his most productive years 1592-1593, 1603-1604, 1606, and 1608-1609. Some of his greatest hits were not likely open and could’ve been closed for a period of nine months or more.

Ryan Faughnder of the Los Angeles Times reported that ever since theatres have closed due to COVID-19, many production companies and cinemas put movies out as video-on-demand (VOD) on the day of the release. Companies such as EON Productions