Then there is the day…

Image: PictureQuotes

1. The day there is a massive storm and a tree comes down on your roof but thankfully just blocks one side of the house and does not damage it. On the other side you try to back your car out of the roller door and the wind is so strong the door malfunctions and you mangle it with your car. You cannot get out. The phone is dead. Thank heavens for mobiles.

2. The day you happily and enthusiastically jump into your car and drive to school on a beautiful sunny day. That’s it. No school bag, no other bag, no laptop, no lunch. You borrow money for lunch and draw the web pages on your whiteboard. You wave your arms around a lot.These days I have iPad back-up.

3. The day you walk the students back from an excursion and one starts to worry you are lost. Another student gets out their mobile, opens up the map app and shows the one who is worried exactly where we are. Thank heavens for mobiles.

4. The day you cannot get to school because your leg has considerable soft tissue damage because of a random dog attack. You tell the school you will be online during a particular lesson because they actually need support in French and you thought you’d be there. One student gingerly sends an email during lesson time. They realise you really are there and so the emails arrive with their requests for help.

5. The day you have spent hours on a carefully planned awesome ICT lesson and there’s a fire drill. Be thankful it wasn’t more serious and use your awesome lesson next time.

6. The day cloud services are not working and you need it to share a critical file with students. Get out the trusty USB stick and fill in the sharing time with basic content practice as they share.

7. The day your IWB has no board connection. Hold your laptop up, show the screen, wave the free arm a lot, and use a writing stick on a normal board. Don’t do what I did and try and change things on the laptop screen with your finger thinking it’s a touch screen.

8. The day the sound doesn’t work. Talk your way through the presentation or get the students to imagine the voice over. Really frees up everyone’s thinking.

9. The day you all sit there looking at the rainbow wheel of death spinning. Reboot. Teach as you troubleshoot, if there is no remedy ,change device or go down the old road and use the student laptops. Students love helping in a technology crisis moment.

10. The day everything drops into place, the learning curve is steep and challenging and you break through with technology awesomeness.