Texting the Teacher

I collect teachers' cell phone numbers. Nowadays, they'll leave the number in the lesson plan "just in case". I don't bother them during the day, though. They're out of class for a reason, so I try to resolve issues on my own so as to not bother them. 

But there are exceptions.

Wednesday. Chemistry, fourth period.

It was my first class of the day. (We're on block schedule, and the teacher had a second period conference period.) Their lessons were posted in Google Classroom. They were to watch a video and do an online practice on reading molecular formulas. 

They logged in. And my worst nightmare happened. They couldn't access the lesson.

This is clearly an exception to the don't-bother-the-teacher rule.

I texted Mr. U immediately. Then I got working on a backup plan, but Mr. U got back to me right away. 

He figured out a work around. Rather than having them log in via Google Classroom, he had them use a different portal (called Clever) where teachers can link student accounts to various educational apps. 

And... that worked! It took a bit for the students to figure out how to access the app as it wasn't posted to their accounts, but Mr. U has a page... It'll take too long to explain. It made sense, and once I knew how they could access the lesson, I was able to explain it to those who didn't catch on (and to the classes in the following periods because they were going to have the same issue). 

I texted Mr. U back to let him know it was working (so he didn't have to find another work around), and the class got to work. 

Gone are the days when teachers just leave a worksheet for the class to complete. It's more complicated on the computers, but it also engages the students more, so they're more likely to do the work. And at least everyone having a cell phone is good for making sure technical glitches can be fixed (most of the time).