I had planned to write on my blog last Thursday when I was supposed to have conducted a professional development seminar for my coworkers about educational uses of blogs and wikis. Upon arrival at our language centre, we discovered that our network was temporarily down and I was therefore unable to go through with the presentation.
Technology like anything else has it's moments of glory and pain. It can be limitless in it's educational and personal uses and also unpredictable at the most inconvenient times. We often forget that it is in fact a machine and breaks down usually due to unforeseen circumstances. But, doesn't it always seem that it's only unreliable when you've planned a professional development session, have a major assignment due that needs to be electronically submitted, or stuck in a foreign country when your passport has just been stolen??
From these experiences we need to take our technology "with a grain of salt" and have a backup plan in case of emergencies. Our session has been delayed until this Thursday and I plan to write another entry this week detailing the outcomes and hopefully successes.
My posting today leads me to my question of, "What is your backup plan when technology fails to deliver?"
-Postpone the lesson?
-Do the lesson without technology (if possible)?
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Adrienne
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4 comments:
Hi Adrienne,
One possibility for an online presentation could be to have a wireless account with your laptop as a backup. Although other participants wouldn't be able to join in as was planned in the PD, getting online to do the presentation stage of the session may be possible.
David Burrows
A very pertinent question! Technology indeed failed me during my computer lesson today.
I had planned to do a lesson on ANZAC Day using the BTN website (www.abc.net.au/btn), however when the students attempted to watch the relevant video the computers froze. I had spent an hour prior discussing the notion of commemoration with the students thinking of examples of commemorating personal and national events. I then pre-taught the relevant vocabulary needed for the video and went through the step-by-step instructions. Once my carefully planned lesson ground to an abrupt halt, I had to think quickly and shift the focus of the lesson entirely. Thankfully I had other web and Word-based work my students could continue with, so the computer time wasn't a complete waste. But the technology failure definitely impacted upon the flow of my lesson.
As for the BTN video - I dug out the good old VHS from the resource room at lunch and we all watched the clip using the old school video player and TV!
Zoe
Adrienne,
I agree that relying on technology in any educational institution can be fraught with difficulties as we are never completely sure whether a piece of equipment - be it a computer or a VCR - will work correctly. One solution is, of course, to have one's own laptop, but that would not have solved your problem of the network being down.
Sometimes the matter just has to be postponed to another day, which means then that we do need to have a backup plan or materials, perhaps even photocopies of Powerpoint slides with verbal instructions as to what seminar participants can do for more information, or website addresses where they can try things out for themselves.
Vincent
Like the others, I also agree that relying on technology during lessons sometimes has its difficulties. Most recently we weren't able to continue with a PD session on how to use our newly acquired Interactive Whiteboard (Yes only 1 to share among 12 classes) because the laptop was going through an update. Naturally, as soon as we had decided to abandon the PD session (and some had made it as far as the carpark), the laptop was ready to go. Oh Well, there's always next week.
In my own situation, (Year 4 Islamic School) I'm still having to convince some parents of the great benefits of having a computer at home for their child(ren) to access, let alone access to the Internet. The struggle continues. I try to allow the students who don't have a computer at home first option at PC use during Lab time. On the bright side school admin is open to new ICT ideas and take my suggestions seriously. I bring a lot of my own equipment to school so that the students can have access to things like a projector on which to present their PowerPoint, watch videos, etc.
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