Thursday, May 31, 2018

That One Last Try


It was Friday, day two of a two-day assignment. The teacher had been out all week. (Another sub got Monday through Wednesday. I only covered Thursday and Friday.)

There were three periods of AP geography, one period of AP psychology, and one period of AP government. (If you aren't familiar with the terminology, here's a link to what an AP class is.)

The fact that the whole schedule is AP is significant. See, the AP tests were from May 7-18. The students work hard to prepare for that test. Once they've taken the test, they're done for the year.

Yup, a whole day of students who were done for the year.

But I wasn't stressing. The teacher had left movies for them to watch.

On Thursday I had done all the panicking. There were no lesson plans, but I knew what they were likely doing. I located the teacher's laptop (which is what they play movies on nowadays), got myself logged in (which was a story in and of itself), and found the teacher's DVDs when the teacher called. The DVD I found was the one he wanted them to watch.

The DVDs all worked on Thursday. So, when I arrived on Friday, I went about setting everything up. (I shut down the laptop before leaving the prior day.)

As it was a Friday, I had arrived a bit late. (Fridays I'm either running really early or really late. This was a late week.) So, I was still setting up when the kiddos started arriving. But no big deal, I thought. I was logged in. All I needed to do was insert the DVD...

And... it wouldn't load. I got an error message. By this time the bell had rung and I had 25 sets of eyes on me, waiting...

So, I tried every trick I know. I ejected and reinserted the DVD. I restarted the computer. I even resorted to asking the students for help. And nothing would work. There was no use for it. It was time to call for help.

The school has a tech helper. He has saved my butt on more than one occasion. But I don't want to call him in if I don't have to. At this point, I had to.

It takes him some time to get to the class, so I went back to the laptop. What if I tried a different DVD? (The government and psychology classes were watching something different.) I popped in the government class' DVD just at the tech helper arrived...

And wouldn't you know it? Now it worked. Naturally.

I apologized for bothering the tech guy now that I had managed to get the thing to work. As always, he was very nice about it. But, I still felt stupid about getting him to come all the way out to the classroom.

With the issues on Thursday and Friday, that class didn't finish the movie. Ah well. At least they had something to do the next week...

19 comments:

  1. It would stress me so much to have those 25 pairs of eyes watching my every move while I was trying to set up the DVD. I guess that's why I'm not a substitute teacher :) I commend you for being one!

    betty

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    1. At a certain point, they all start talking amongst themselves.

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  2. I never thought about it, but, of course, schools have 'tech people' on staff. What was the movie, btw?

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    Replies
    1. It's one per school, but they manage to show up when I need them, so that's good enough for me.

      The freshmen were watching Spellbound. The seniors were watching that miniseries The Kennedys. And the psychology class was watching season one of House.

      Delete
  3. If it was anything like the movies I had to watch in school, they aren't missing anything.

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    Replies
    1. Have you seen Spellbound? If you haven't, you need to see Spellbound. (The spelling bee one. It's awesome.)

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  4. I sometimes get so annoyed with technology!

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    Replies
    1. Oh yea. Just when you think it's working...

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  5. Being that I recently had the computer issues I have to say....I HATE technology when things will not go right...

    ReplyDelete
  6. The tech guy was probably happy to stretch his legs. And, if not, he probably needed to stretch them anyway, whether he knew it or not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's always pleasant when I see him, so you're probably right. He probably likes getting out of his office.

      Delete
  7. Thought of the teacher to have a movie. I feel sorry for the sub.
    Coffee is on

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, he was prepared. Although, he shows the classes the same movies every year after the AP tests, so he's had plenty of time to prepare.

      Delete
  8. A local writer and friend of mine does that kind of work for an area district. He's super nice, too, as were all the tech guys everywhere I used to work. I wonder if that job draws a certain type of gentle personality? Glad you got it to work, at least.

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    Replies
    1. I wonder. I'll have to pay closer attention to them in the future (assuming I go someplace where I don't already know them).

      Delete
  9. Oh man that sucks. I don't do well at all when people are watching me but it sounds like you kept your cool and you got the movie started. What movie did they have to watch?

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    Replies
    1. The freshmen were watching Spellbound. The doc about the spelling bee (not the Hitchcock).

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  10. Oh well. The tech guy probably needs the exercise. Honestly, I have rarely been to a meeting or a seminar where the technology has worked perfectly.

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