Welcome back to the Mac! Yesterday my iPad Pro was…no…let me take that back…Google Classroom was having trouble on my iPad Pro. Late in the afternoon I started having trouble opening up documents my students were submitting to me to read and respond to. I immediately went to Google to try and figure out what was going on. I got in a threaded conversation with several other educators who were experiencing the same issue. Go figure…Google was having problems with the volume of people using Google Classroom. Another thing to reflect on when all of this passes…what to do when the platform you initially depend on during times like this starts to get “buggy?” Because of this developing situation…I had to think fast and…thankfully…I have other devices so…I am now back on my Mac Book Pro. I can use every app I was using on the iPad Pro on my Mac so…before going to bed last night…I started to set up things so I could work efficiently today.
Speaking of working efficiently, I am debating whether or not to post more work in Google Classroom tomorrow. I say this because there are students who haven’t even started the work I assigned last week. However, there is a consistent amount of work coming in from a good majority of students. That’s the rub. If I stop posting content there won’t be anything for them to do…that doesn’t seem right. Yesterday afternoon I decided to reach out the only way I can…via the Remind app because I know each family has access to it. For the students that have not posted to GC I wrote offering to help out. One parent replied and I spent part of the afternoon helping her help her son out. With him successfully on line I only have 3 students whose families I haven’t heard from. We actually had a Zoom meeting with our principal yesterday afternoon about this issue. The school is working hard at compiling information about who we’ve not been able to contact so that as best we can…have them ready by next week.
I’m going to have a few meetings today. Virtual of course. One is directed at just grade level concerns and the other is a full staff meeting.
So…I just finished my 2 virtual meetings and…the first meeting with my grade level colleagues was more of “touch base” “how’s everyone doing” sort of meeting. I’m also thinking that this meeting was a way for the facilitators to help those not that “tech savvy” to feel a bit better about our current circumstances so I tried to remain patient until I felt that we were done then asked permission to leave the meeting. The staff meeting was a bit of the same…community building before the details. At the end of the staff meeting I felt as though I was ahead of the curve and should give myself credit for the hard work I’ve put in since last Monday. That said…Friday is an optional Teacher Workday. I think I’m going to take advantage of that and go “off line” with my students yet remain available to my administrators.