The Dog Ate My Blog

No, really. That's why I didn't have a blog last week. I was sitting in my room, typing happily, and then I had to go answer the phone. I was away from my screen for only thirty seconds - I SWEAR - and when I came back, there was the dog, chomping away on the last bit of my blog. No lyin'. So that's what happened.

Hmmm ...

Yeah, I wouldn't buy that bag of crap either. It's just the symptom of something larger that I've been experiencing.

As an attempt to step-up my technology in the classroom (or 'teching-up" as we cried with fists thrust in the air last summer in the EIT class at UNI) I included some online writing options for my World Humanities class. I made this optional as not everyone in the class has access to technology, so therefore it was not mandatory for everyone. My only requirement was that if a student started out with this option, they needed to see it through to the end of the course.

We are on trimesters - the week before Thanksgiving is always scheduled for two days of finals for the Fall Trimester. It's a time when we all feel good about ending the first third of the school year, preparing to travel to family destinations for Thanksgiving, and just getting a break from one another. It's also that dreaded time of year when every single technology on the entire planet that students use to complete their final papers and projects just completely collapses into a molten heap of silicon and copper.

I know it wasn't in the papers - for some unexplained reason it never is. And strangely, it never affects my own phone, computer or printer. It also seems that this doesn't happen to anyone else outside of the school. But as sure as "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" airs on TV in November, the technological equivalent of the Titanic occurs the week before turkey day.

Unless of course students are using a convenient excuse to buys some time ... would they actually do that?

Let me make one thing clear: I don't think everyone who plays the "technological meltdown card" is doing so unscrupulously. Too many times I've gone to the printer/copier in my building to produce material for the day only to discover that - despite the many warning signs not to do it - someone has tried to photocopy a transparency and shut the machine down until the next service call can be made. I know it happens. I know it can't be helped sometimes. SOMETIMES.

I do my best to make sure that there are avenues for plans B, C, D and E to follow in case something technologically catastrophic occurs. The winner for this term was the kid who was convinced that he could do everything on his smart phone.  I told him that it was cool that he was trying, and I would work with him - but warned him to make sure that there was a back-up somewhere if his phone went down. Not to worry, he said. Never happens. And he was correct - until he needed to send an assignment and his service got cut off. He was certain he didn't know why, but an email to his parent confirmed what I thought was the case: he didn't keep his GPA up to the agreed level in exchange for smart phone service. The parents had it disconnected two weeks before finals to make sure he didn't have the distraction.

Honestly, I didn't see that one coming. I'm sure he didn't either, and because of this, he had to re-do (or perhaps start for real) his final assignment. The assignment was late, I had to make changes, and it was a pain for all.

New technologies and new approaches with those technologies change rapidly - and we learn quickly. The lesson here is to make sure teacher and student are ready for the unpredictable, and to make sure that there is a reasonable Plan B when Plan A goes down the toilet.

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