County schools have closed at least through April.

To help combat the spread of corona virus, students have converted to online learning.

Students at Gray Collegiate Academy were caught off guard when they were told not to return to classes.

They left for a long-weekend on a Thursday, planning to return Monday morning.

The sudden closure forced the school to quickly come up with an online alternative to prevent students having to make up all the missed days.

The transition at Gray and other Lexington County schools went mostly seamlessly because of the school’s already heavy use of technology.

Students already have school-provided laptops and chargers. They are familiar with programs like Google Classroom because teachers already use the program to assign most work and communicate with the class.

At Gray, teachers use Google Classroom as the main means of communication and assigning work. Students are required to check Google Classroom daily to complete the assigned work.

Some new notes are being posted online, but so far it’s been a lot of busy work.

Classes like Drawing 111 are more complicated.

Students must drawn assignments on printer paper and submit a picture of the drawing.

In weight lifting, students are required to follow an assigned plan, but there’s no way to enforce it.

Some teachers are trying to do live online discussions or create YouTube videos to help students learn.

Lexington Districts 1 and 2 are following a similar plan, using online platforms similar to Google Classroom to assign busy work.

Assigning projects and busy work is easy to do, but it doesn’t give students the opportunity to absorb and learn the material.

This method of online learning lacks lecture time for new material.

Luckily, students will not be required to take end of year standard tests.

The SC Department of Education last week requested the suspension of federal student assessments.

Cole Stilwell is the Chronicle’s social media intern and a junior at Gray Collegiate Academy.