Not the most impressive day of virtual school for me: while most of my students managed to give speeches in Public Speaking, one kid had to do his with his camera off-- it was blocked-- and so I told him "Pretend you're on the radio!"-- which dated me considerably-- I probably should have said, "Pretend you're on a podcast!"-- but whatever-- and then ten minutes into the second period, my school-issued device took control of itself and turned off the cursor and any sort of track-pad control-- but I could use the touch screen, which turned into a comical sequence of me touching windows and tabs and essentially screwing up the entire Teams meeting-- then the computer decided it needed an update and shut itself down-- I hope no parents heard me cursing it out-- but I was able to boot up the meeting on my iMac-- though Teams has gotten markedly slower since the pandemic-- which is weird and dumb-- and it really slows to a crawl if you share your screen-- so for my final period, instead of doing my slideshow lecture (with loads of musical and artistic examples!) about Modernism and Post-Modernism and then giving the kids a digital quiz, I had the kids do a goofy and barely educational group project that they could present next class . . . I really hope they fix our building soon-- for the sake of the children and the sake of me (and the sake of my podcast-- it's the last thing I feel like doing after a day of talking to a screen).
push through, man. america is counting on you.
ReplyDeleteI really hope someone recorded your class and your associated bumbling.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. And then posts it on their own podcast "We Defy Mr. P" and it goes viral.
ReplyDeletei think there might have been some profanity-- but who knows if the kids heard it? my voice was distorted and glitchy and they were probably sleeping (or cooking and lifting weights, as a football player in my creative writing class was doing-- in the span of the same class . . . he said he made some eggs for protein and then got a few sets in).
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