Ohhh my have I had my patience tried with technology these past couple of weeks. I've taught two lessons with PowerPoint in the last two weeks, and neither time did technology comply without a fight. I realized (luckily, before the class started) that my video clips needed their format to be switched from .mp4 to .avi in order to work on TG's Dell computer. Then, I had to get a speaker system moved into my classroom in order for the sound to work... this I did NOT realize before the lesson started. So this brought about feelings of frustration that the technology wasn't working with me and also that I hadn't anticipated this issue from occurring in the first place.
Last week, I taught a lesson in International Relations, and the LCD projector was just plain not working by the time 4th hour rolled around. After 15 minutes of TG fiddling and me trying to run and impromptu discussion session about water without have given my students any of my statistics or information from my presentation, we ended up moving to another room and from there things went smoothly. Until I tried to show some news clips. This time I had re-formatted my files to work on a PC, but the sound wasn't working. Until a student came up and pushed the plug in to the back of the computer.
Duh.
So, this whole experience has taught me to realize that technology is not always on your side, and to anticipate tech problems so you can calmly move forward with Plan B without looking like a complete spaz in front of your students.
2 comments:
It's amazing and almost laughable sometimes that teachers spend so much time prepping and anticipating the unexpected prior to a lesson, that the slightest bit of a technology issue can throw off valuable minutes of a class. I definitely agreed with your frustration, Caroline. How can we as teachers plan for issues with technology? Are we always supposed to have Plan B or C if the issue isn't resolved at the moment? Do we always have the school tech guys on speed dial? I would like to hear how you and other future teachers plan on dealing with technological problems on a daily basis.
I feel your pain, Caroline.
I suppose that there's probably an element of having to get to know the quirks of the particular pieces of equipment to which you have access. Too often, the wobbly state of technology in schools pushes teachers away from using it, and this is unfortunate. Perhaps as more young teachers come out with an interest in employing tech tools in their teaching, there will be a realization that schools need to devote more resources to upkeep and support.
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