Where You At?

Last week, I talked about Alec not being able to log into Odyssey to do his assignments. I thought it went without saying, but some of the comments made me rethink my position. Alec did not forget his birthday. He was trying to get out of doing anything by playing at not being able to log in. Little did he realize that I'm the type of sub who will find a way...

One of the issues with Odyssey is that it "locks out" the students periodically. It's either the "test" assignment or the student has to redo something before they can move on. This is not a big deal for the teacher, as she can just go in and fix the issue so the students can continue working.

However, when there's a sub who doesn't have access, the students can get "locked out" and be stuck. For an entire period (or, in this case, two). Which is bad news for the sub, as the students tend to get into mischief when they have nothing to occupy their time.

Earlier this school year, Ms. R taught me how to override many of the lockouts. So, when the students actually got to work and found the usual issues, I went to work making sure they could continue (and not slip onto slither.io).

In the second hour (they have her for two periods), the lockouts started to mysteriously disappear. Ms. R, in her lesson plan, had said she'd clear things from home, but when she wasn't doing that in the first hour, I did. When I realized that she was doing that, I logged off.

Alec was flummoxed, though. It was clear Ms. R was doing this, as she was sending all the students messages (telling them what they got wrong so they could fix it).

Alec demanded to know where she was. I told him to ask her. So, he typed in: wya

Me: Does she know what that means?

Alec: Probably not.

Me: Then you'd better explain.

Alec (typing): where you at

Ms. R (message): At home. Sick.

The next day, I saw Ms. R, and we discussed the class. She told me she had planned on clearing out the Odyssey lockouts, but she fell asleep and didn't wake until the second hour. Then we got to Alec.

I was right. She had no idea what "wya" meant. She only responded because he clarified. For some reason, she was impressed that I had been standing over him during that whole exchange.

This is when she told me that Alec had turned in a lot of assignments that day. So, apparently once he gets started, he makes progress.

I learned something important that day (for the next time I cover these classes): the password to log them into Odyssey is the same password they use to log them onto the computer. (So, since Alec could get on the computer, he was totally faking not knowing his password for Odyssey.)