Our Story - Announcing Two Screens for Teachers
A couple of weeks ago my neighbor Carlos told me his mom who is a teacher is having the hardest year of her career because of online teaching.
“I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to help.” Carlos told me.
“Then it hit me.” he said.
“I could buy a second monitor for my mom so she could see her students on one screen and her lesson plans on the other.”
I was like, “Whoa.”
I realized that in a complicated world during unprecedented times a second screen is a simple thing we can do right now to help teachers.
Over the last two weeks as a pilot program, we bought about twenty teachers second monitors. What I learned is that Carlos’s mom isn’t alone. Lots of teachers told me this is the hardest year they’ve had in their career.
I also learned that the second screen transforms their online teaching experience because they can always see their students on one screen as they manage their presentation, lesson plans, class notes, attendance, grading program, etc. on the other screen.
Imagine trying to run a Zoom call, a Google Slides presentation, and class notes all on a 13” laptop!
I have two kids who are learning online at Seattle Public Schools. I’d been so stressed out as a parent that I didn’t think enough about what teachers are going through. Multiply the stress of a parent by about 20 (once for each kid), and that’s how teachers feel right now.
The gratitude from the teachers who got a second monitor fills me up.
Over the last two weeks I built Two Screens for Teachers with my co-founder Mike Mathieu and my friends Dave, Jesse, and Kenshi (and my wife and even my dad Steve pitched in) so that anyone can buy a teacher a monitor.
We need your help spreading the word to donors, teachers, foundations and corporate partners to hit our goal of 250,000 monitors delivered to teachers in the fall semester of 2020.
Here’s Carlos telling the story that inspired me. I hope it inspires you too.
P.S. We’re offsetting the carbon from every monitor purchased through this site by purchasing carbon offsets.