It was hard to get motivated this morning — Fridays are typically low attendance days in the classroom, and I had worked hard to get today’s topic condensed down into a lot of digestible information (we’re talking about the rediscovery of Mendel, the biometrician and Mendelians arguing with each other). I had a presentation that was pretty tight and I thought would help make the conflict comprehensible to a group of liberal arts majors, none of whom are biology majors.
So I get to class today, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had 80% attendance, which is kind of a miracle. I tell you, standing at the front of a classroom with only 3 students who don’t really appreciate the work you put in to the class is mighty depressing. So I was temporarily heartened that maybe this lecture wouldn’t go to waste, I fired up my laptop and the projector and got ready to tell this exciting story…and the projector is glitched out. It’s not connecting to anything, and is showing me a message that the projector and microphones were not receiving any data since 5:21pm yesterday. Isn’t technology nice that it has become so sophisticated that it can tell you precisely when it broke down?
I fumbled with it for about 15 minutes — that was the show today, watching the old geezer prof toggling switches and poking at a keyboard in front of the class, and seeing everything fail. I ended up giving up, giving them a brief oral summary of the history of biology from 1900-1915, telling them I’ll give them all the details on Monday, and sending them home early. So many smiles from the students! I didn’t tell them that I don’t find that encouraging at all.
Now I’m sitting in an empty classroom waiting for the IT people to show up. At least I can cheer myself up by thinking, hey, this isn’t the worst thing to happen this week.
My favorite is technology that fails and then tells me it’s my fault.
“Now I’m sitting in an empty classroom waiting for the IT people to show up. At least I can cheer myself up by thinking, hey, this isn’t the worst thing to happen this week.”
Way to keep a positive attitude. Technology is great, when it works.
@1. Yeah, the first suggestion, in the form of a question, from the IT person is what did you do to cause this?
One of my colleagues used to always say that trouble comes in groups of three.
Google says this is in fact, an ancient superstition.
So, you still have one more thing to go wrong.
These days we are all lucky if trouble only comes in groups of three instead of say,…six.
Oh God. Last year giving a presentation which was purely practical the system failed. I had nothing to show them. Ended up giving out the lollipops, which I had as a bribe to encourage volunteers, surprisingly effective PZ, and sent them home.
Years ago I had to give my undergraduate course lectures in a distant classroom. I dutifully lugged the computer and the projector there, only to find that I had brought the wrong cable to connect them. So I had to give the lecture at the blackboard using chalk, and waving my hands. I was unhappy. In the course evaluations the students said that that was their favorite lecture.
@5 — The old chalk and blackboard routine does at least encourage a baseline of engagement as the lecturer has to be actively engaged in writing on the board during the session.
You reveal your age and background by being frustrated with malfunctioning and poorly designed technology, and trying to fix it.
Notice that your students knew they should not even try.
Happened to me giving a lecture about document management to an audience of Australia’s top ten law firms.
That was when I learned that if you know your stuff its ok to improvise. lol