Teaching from Home, Again

Thursday morning. I walked into the classroom, and the lights did not click on. (They have an automatic sensor.) The room was stuffy. (The a/c is on a constant vent air due to Covid. It might not blow cold, but something should have been blowing.) 

The power was out. 

Before I had a chance to panic, I glanced at my phone. I had a text from the school's secretary: 

Good morning. Mr. L [the principal] sent out a message instructing teachers to teach from home today. There has been a power outage.

Um... 

If you recall from last week, my car was once again in the shop. Yes, it had been a week, but it was not yet done. (I got it back later that day.) The nice person who had given me a ride had dropped me off and left. 

I called her and politely asked her to turn around and retrieve me. 

Then it was a scramble. What did I need from the classroom? Being on a long-term gig, I knew what the plans for the day were. I had been leaving the flash drive with the PowerPoints for class lectures at school. (Considering getting pulled and car trouble, I wanted to make sure if I wasn't there, whoever was could keep the class going.) 

I grabbed the flash drive. I grabbed the page the economics class was going to do. And then I waited for my ride to retrieve me.

I had taught at home for a couple months (November through March, to be exact), so I had this. Right? 

Well... First period suffered through my technical difficulties. But by third, things were going pretty smoothly. Their teacher, Mrs. O, had scrambled to post the notes and the assignment for the day, so all I had to do was present things. 

I got it done. At least this wasn't a new thing, teaching from home. And I could do it without a mask. Small victories. 

(There had been a car accident that took out the power to that area. They hoped to have it restored for Friday. Or, the district would bring in generators.)  

Brazen Request

Please tell me I am overreacting. 

I've been on this long-term English assignment for a bit over a month. (While you're reading this, I am already done with it. It ended on Tuesday.) Because of everything, many students are behind on their work. I have told the kiddos that they can turn in late work for credit. I only ask they give me a heads-up email so I know to look for it in Google Classroom.

The kiddos on email are kind of funny. Some are very apologetic. Some haven't quite gotten the conventions of email down, so they tell me too little or too much. And, of course, there are the grammatical errors of teens. 

I don't mind it at all. Except for Rodolfo. 

His first email to me: 

I submitted the OMAM chap 3 questions and the OMAM characterization chart.

It would be appreciated if you put this in as soon as possible.

(OMAM is short for Of Mice and Men, the book they're reading.) 

The thing that irritated me? Not that he sent the email at 10:38 PM. What got me was I had just graded the chapter 3 questions and input them into the gradebook, including his assignment. I checked. 

Wisely, I did not respond to his email. Nor did he ask me about any of this in class. (Nor did he stay after class to ask me anything one on one.) 

I was behind on grading. So, the emails piled up from students letting me know they had just submitted something. As did the assignments that were being turned in on time. Rodolfo emailed again: 

I submitted the chap 4 quickwrite and OMAM chap 3 questions. Also waiting for the characterization chart to be updated into aeries.

Yeah, I didn't need the reminder that I was behind on grading. Got it. I'd get to grading his characterization chart as soon as I could. And the chapter 3 questions...? 

Again, I didn't respond to the email. 

I was finally caught up on grading when Rodolfo sent me another email:

You graded the OMAM CHAP 3 questions and my mom is asking me about it. I am just waiting for it to be put into aeries.

Huh? I input that ages ago. But I checked... Nope. For some reason, I had never input his score into the online gradebook. *hangs head in shame*

Otherwise, it felt as if Rodolfo was hounding me about getting to grading his late work. But I'm being ridiculous. I know I am. Aren't I?

Assigned an Extra Period Remotely

Tuesday, third period. While we were "reading" (listening to the audiobook) of chapter five of The Great Gatsby, I got a text from the secretary in charge of subs at the school. (Remember, I'm at home.) Could I cover an extra period? 

Extra period assignments used to be commonplace. I'd dread answering the classroom phone because it was likely the office calling to ask if I could trek across campus to cover another class instead of getting an hour to myself. (But I got paid for that extra hour, and when they'd call they really needed coverage, so I never turned them down.) I counted them up, and I'd frequently get a "bonus day" out of them if not two per month. 

But, with the distance thing, extra period assignments just haven't happened. 

Until last week. 

The teacher wasn't feeling well. Considering that she had something in the feed on her Google Classroom from the previous day about her maybe not being in class, this must have been something that was ongoing or she was expecting. 

Of course I took it. It wasn't like I had to go anyplace. It was simple to log in.

And a few of the students looked familiar. I had them in the class I've been covering all month. 

(The class was "medical assistant". It's a science elective.)

So, that was another new thing with this distance learning. And just when I thought we'd pretty much done it all by now.

Pinky And The...

When I started this long-term assignment, I noticed his name. Brain. 

Students' actual names are not used on this blog, except in rare instances. Today is one of those exceptions. This post isn't about the student, just his name. And it's a fairly common name, so he won't be identified by this post.

Brain? Not Brian? 

I mean, I've seen some weird names. I took down the sidebar "Student Name of the Week" last year, but I might reinstate it at some point. (There's still a tab at the top where you can see previous entries.) But for some reason, this one seemed wrong.

I didn't call on him. When he typed his name into the chat, he typed in Brian. 

Some of the teachers have them type their name into the chat as a form of attendance. I don't particularly use it, but I don't want them to get out of the habit for those teachers that require it, so I don't discourage it.

According to the official school stuff, his name is Brain. But mistakes can happen, and it's a simple transposition of two letters. (Those of you who have friends named Brian, be careful. It's really easy to accidentally type in Brain, and spellcheck won't catch it as it is a word.) 

So, I set this aside in my head, and I did my job.

Thursday. End of third period. The class was logging off. 

Sometimes students stick around for a bit to ask a question of me one-on-one. Sometimes they just lag. One boy was about to ask me something when he saw Brain's name on screen.

"Why does Brian's avatar say 'brain'?" 

And that's when I knew for certain that it was a typo.

The boy tried to call out to Brian, but he had already logged off. 

"I'll text him and ask."

At this point, I don't know who has access to fix it. I assume that Brian noticed the issue before this, so it might be something he can't get fixed. But if he hasn't, at least his friend will let him know.

Although, it took his friend long enough to notice.

Moving Away

For the most part, the kiddos don't talk. They leave their cameras off as well as their microphones, so we communicate via the chat. But a few of them to turn on their mics and talk to me.

In period four, that student is Drake. 

I really appreciate Drake. When I have them doing work, he asks questions. I'm sure some of his questions are questions the other students have. And he answers when I pose questions for the class.

On Friday he was early to class. He's usually early, but this time he needed to talk to me.

Drake explained that he had just moved and he was using the WiFi hotspot from his phone to log into the meet. He wasn't going to be able to do the work for class due to the move. (They were going to install the internet the next week, probably.) 

Trying to be helpful, I pointed out that the school has WiFi hotspots for school work that the kiddos can pick up. That's when Drake informed me that he had moved two hours away.

Well, it's not Egypt, nor is it in an undisclosed foreign country for a funeral...

Drake will transfer schools, but at the end of the school year. This distance thing means he can finish off this school year where he's at. And I heard from other teachers that this seems to be a thing lately.

I would have liked to meet Drake in person. Sigh. But I consider that a valid excuse for late work. There are some things that one can't control.

A Small Error

About a week into this English long-term, I got an email from one of the school's counselors. The freshmen had done a 100-point essay with the previous sub. A girl had questioned her grade. 

She got an 85. Alas, in the gradebook, it was listed as 0.85.

That's quite the typo. 

It was an easy fix. And her grade jumped from an F to a B or something. (They haven't had many assignments, so it was a majority of her grade.) 

I wasn't sure why she felt the need to go through her counselor, though. Clearly that was input wrong.

Then last week another student contacted me. He had gotten a 10 on something, but it was in the gradebook as 0.10. 

At least this time he went directly to me. And again, it was an easy fix.

So, now I wonder. How many other grades did a decimal get accidentally inserted before the score? 

I'm not terribly tempted to go and look. It would take me a while to go through all the grades in all the periods. They should be checking their grades anyway, right? 

Football Season

It's Sunday. I write all my blog posts over the weekend, and I have for many years. It's simpler that way. 

Before getting to the blog writing, I did a quick perusal of my emails. When I got to my "student" account, I found another email from Khalil. 

Khalil is an eleventh grader in my fourth period class. He's on the football team. And his grade is not where it should be to make him eligible to play football. 

Yes, I know it's spring. But CIF shut down school sports in the fall. As COVID cases have fallen, they've allowed a modified spring schedule, including the sports we lost in the fall. The first high school football games were played last weekend. 

He's been saying that he needs to get his grade up. I told him he needs to complete his missing work (of which there is a lot). Yesterday (Saturday), I graded the two things he submitted, so his grade did rise... to about 33%. 

But today, he said that I had not graded his essay assignments. 

I took over this English class the last week of February. Before that, Mr. P had been the sub. The essay assignments had been assigned under him. In January. 

This is a case of "a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". But while Khalil has been persistent, he hasn't been rude about it. So, I'll grade the assignments (for partial credit due to them being so late). 

I doubt they'll be much help. His grade is so low at this point. But at least he's trying. 

The Wrong Test

It is once again testing time. I was a bit nervous as to how things would go, especially since I had been around for the fiasco six months ago. (See yesterday's post for more about that.) But things went surprisingly smoothly. 

Day one went off well. I had a couple issues of students getting stuck on the loading screen of doom, but from the last time, I knew that the solution was to reload the test for them. Annoying, but effective. 

Then Monday night I got an email from the assistant principal who's in charge of the testing. 

So as to not overburden any one department, they had three departments administer the testing. The English teachers administered the language test, the math teachers administered the math test, and the history teachers administered the reading test. But because the ninth graders take geography or health (each is a semester course), the health teachers were also administering the reading test. 

The email from the assistant principal was a forward from one of the health teachers. Mr. C had emailed Ms. A, but as she's on maternity leave, she's not checking her email. But Mr. C brilliantly cc'ed the assistant principal, and he knew to forward it to me. 

Mr. C gave his freshmen the wrong test. He gave them the language test. Oops. 

So, that meant I had to give the students he had already tested the reading test. 

It was only two students, and switching the test was actually pretty simple. I doubt the class really caught that two of them were taking a different test. 

Minor problems. It was so nice to have a testing go on with only minor problems.

Needing Extra Time

I just got started on this long-term assignment for an English teacher who is out on maternity leave. We did a week starting reading novels (Of Mice and Men for the ninth graders, The Great Gatsby for the eleventh graders.) During the week I got information about upcoming testing. 

Testing? 

Yeah, so, does anyone remember back in September when I was covering that vacant special ed position and how we had this testing to do? No? Let's just say there were several technical issues that made this a mess, and you can click on these links for the posts where I mentioned them. And I really didn't delve into the full crazy that was that testing. 

Turns out it was time to re-administer this test as it's been six months. The idea is to measure how much the students have grown since then. 

Deep sigh. 

On the bright side, I had gone through that trial by fire, so I understood how to administer the test. And I'd been fully trained. 

And...

We had no major issues. The whole thing went fairly smoothly. No major hiccups. 

I mean, I had various issues, but they were minor and easily dealt with. 

Whew. 

One of the things the school did was to give us testing blocks of two hours and fifteen minutes to administer the tests. This ended up being sufficient for almost everyone to finish the test in one sitting. (So we only had to log them in once, and we didn't have to try to remember who still had a test to finish and who was just sitting in class, waiting.) 

But, it wasn't sufficient for everyone. 

The school day has an "office hour" for students to meet with teachers for whatever reason. I warned the kiddos that non-finishers were going to need to show up for the office hour. 

Wednesday. It was the end of the long block, and I had two students who hadn't finished (out of 30, so that's excellent). One boy was more than half way through the test, but he had been working slowly. 

I asked him if he'd be around for the office hour. This is when he informed me that he had lost his glasses, one of his contact lenses had dried out overnight, so he had been doing the test that entire time one-eyed. It slowed him down. 

Yikes. 

The test is untimed, so he needed no reason to need more time. Nor did I demand an explanation. As a glasses/contact lenses wearer, I understood his pain completely. 

Ultimately, it did not take him long to finish in that office hour. I assume he found his glasses or hydrated the contact. I didn't ask. 

Bugs Bunny Broke My Computer

The ninth graders are reading Of Mice and Men. 

I'm doing a long-term assignment for an English teacher on maternity leave.

Since all of the English teachers are doing the same thing at the same time, I checked with Ms. W to make sure that the next day we were going on to chapter 3. Alas, her class was behind. So, rather than get ahead of the group, I took a day to "discuss" what we had just read in chapters 1 and 2. 

I prepared. I went through the chapters and found some discussion questions and created a slide presentation to help move things along.

I was ready.

Thursday morning, first period. 

To break up the discussion a bit, I thought it would be fun to show a short video that references the book. And I found the cartoon I had vaguely remembered. 

I intro'd the video by saying that Of Mice and Men is well-known in pop culture. Then I hit play...

We got to the point where Daffy was going to find a real rabbit for the abominable snowman when the buffering wheel of doom appeared on my screen.

Aaarrrgggghhhhh!!!!!

While I attempted to get the video to play again, I asked the kiddos what allusions they caught. They caught the obvious ones, so I was pleased. With them. With my computer, not so much.

(I have two computers going, one with the meet and the other I use to project stuff for the class. It's simpler.) 

I did everything I could think of. I did a hard shut down of the computer. Twice. A restart. I attempted to load things, but it just wasn't going to let anything play. 

After a few minutes of this, I had the kiddos work on the questions for the chapter that were due. And then I spent the entire period trying to get the stuff to work again.

No dice.

Deep sigh.

Well, at least they had time to get their questions done.

Friday morning, I had second period. Also ninth grade. 

I loaded everything. Crossed my fingers...

And it all worked perfectly. 

Sigh.

At least my preparations were used for something. Yay?

Old People's Tech

I'm covering an English class long-term for a teacher who is out on maternity leave. The eleventh graders are reading The Great Gatsby. 

On Tuesday/Wednesday, it was time to start chapter 1. But, I did not have a copy of the book. I asked the other teachers, and they did not have a PDF for the book to use for the classes. 

(The students can check out a physical copy of the book from the campus library, but that means they have to go to the campus, and as we're doing the distance learning thing, most aren't getting down to campus to do that. Mostly, the teachers are putting copies of the materials needed online.) 

This was when it occurred to me I had heard that The Great Gatsby had entered the public domain in January. I wondered if it was up on Project Gutenberg. 

If you have not heard of Project Gutenberg, it's...

...a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library.

(That's via Wikipedia.)

It was. So, I downloaded a copy and uploaded that and the links to the students' Google Classroom.

On Thursday/Friday I explained where the copy of the book came from. Just so they'd know. 

I uploaded three things: the PDF, the html version, and a link to Gatsby's page. The reason for the third is because from that page, one can download an EPUB or Kindle version of the text that can be sideloaded to any ereader.

As I explained the third link, I asked the class if any of them had an ereader. Crickets. I explained what an ereader was. 

I got a few nos. Then one student chimed in with, "My grandma has one of those." 

Gee. Thanks for sharing. 

And here, I thought the kiddos liked ereaders. Consider me educated. 

A Random Comment

Last week I took over an English class for a teacher who is out on maternity leave. I don't have to figure out lesson plans on my own as all the English classes in each grade are doing the same thing together. This makes lesson planning really easy. 

The eleventh graders are getting ready to read The Great Gatsby. The prior sub (who had done his 30 days so could continue no longer--our subbing credential won't allow us to work any longer than 30 days in one class) had started some of the prelim stuff, and as of Monday they were still getting ready to read the book.

Monday's assignment was to watch a video on the Roaring '20s: 

Because distance learning and the way kiddos watch videos, I naturally assigned "notes" to go along with the video. And because I detest the listing of facts (which the students half-ass anyway), I decided to create some questions for them.

I made the questions pretty general. They were like, name something that was new in the '20s, name something that started in the '20s that we still have today, etc. I came up with four rather general questions. 

But I decided that I wanted the assignment to be worth five points, so I needed another question.

That's when the influence of too many years of blogging kicked in. I realized what the fifth question had to be.

I had them write a random comment. 

Most did well with that. Some tried to be cerebral and told me a fact from the video. Some said they liked or did not like the video. Some said something they found to be interesting.

And some didn't answer that question at all. And... I...

I mean, that was the easiest question of all. A gimme point. They wrote something, they got the point.

Yet, of the 10% of students who did not get the full credit for the assignment, it was because of that question. 

(And, seriously? Before we started the video, I went over the questions, and I told them number five was a write anything question.)

I may have to assign random comments more frequently. Just because I'm contrary like that.

Famous

The previous day, I had gotten a brief call from the sub caller. Could I cover twenty days for Ms. A? I would get two overlap days with the current sub, Mr. P. 

(Ms. A is on maternity leave. She's due back in April.) 

Some subs are well-known. Mr. P is one of them. 

I see him around all the time, and if I mention his name to students, they know who I'm talking about. And they like him. He's good at his job. 

Thursday morning I joined the first period. Mr. P greeted me, even pronouncing my name correctly. (I'm not particular about it, but mostly those who talk to me get it close enough.) 

After class, we had some time to talk. He said he had informed the other teachers in the department of who was taking over for him, and then he said something that shocked me. He said that my name should be familiar to them because I was more well-known than him. 

Uh, I beg to differ, Mr. P, but no, you're way more well-known than me. I mean, I know the other teachers do know me. They're definitely familiar with me. No question. 

But if I were to rank the "famous" subs, I am well below Mr. P. 

It's hard to know how known one is outside of their little circles. I guess Mr. P doesn't know how familiar he is to the rest of us.

Early Removal

Eighth grade English. I was covering for a special ed teacher who co-teaches with two different general ed teachers. But, all the English teachers plan their lessons together, so all the eighth grade English classes (and the other grades as well) are doing the same thing on the same day. 

I co-taught with two different teachers, but both of them did the same lesson. 

It was day one of their Holocaust unit. 

The largest component of this unit is the reading of The Diary of Anne Frank. But before they get to the literature, they do some preliminary work. 

The way their history classes are structured, they don't learn anything about World War II until tenth grade. While some of them might have picked up some knowledge from various media and such, most of them don't know anything at all. 

So, day one was all about some background info on WWII. 

We watched a short video that gave a bare bones overview of the war. And then they had questions to answer. 

Sixth period. Ms. W was doing the questions with the kiddos. I had the document up on my other computer (yes, I have two computers) so I could follow along. As she typed in an answer, I replicated it in the chat so those students who had a hard time reading it as a presented doc on the screen could see it. 

Then suddenly, the doc gave a warning message saying I no longer had access to it. 

What? 

I tried to refresh the screen, and all of the classes for the day in Google Classroom were gone. I had been removed. 

We still had ten minutes in class. 

When we subs are added to a class for the day, we have teacher access. But we don't need to retain teacher access for classes after our day in the class. Depending on the school, it may take a day to get removed, or I might remove myself. 

This was the first time I got removed while in class. 

I was still in the meet, so I was able to get the info for the questions from what the other teacher presented. The students didn't notice. 

I know some days I'm anxious to get done with class. Now I know that someone is more anxious than me.

I Remember You

Biology. They had an assignment on genetic drift--a video and then a virtual lab. 

Now that I have videos working, I showed the video. I explained the assignment. I released them to work. 

In the chat, a student wrote: 

Wait a second I remember you-

I get this a lot. I replied with something noncommittal. If the student pursues the question, we can chase down where they remember me from. But virtually they haven't really been all that interested.

However, this girl then gave me more information: 

I'm the kid who screamed its Wednesday my dudes and you didn't like me after that

Ah. Yes, I remember that she thinks I hate her. And since there's nothing I can do to disabuse her of this notion, I let it go. 

The next time I see her, she'll have to remind me that I hate her and why. I guess this is a game we'll play until she graduates or grows out of this notion. It'll be interesting to see which it is.

The Tennis Team

In case you've been wondering (I know I have), the various sports teams still have class. CIF (the state's interscholastic sports' governing body) pretty much closed all competition for the fall. (I hadn't heard what they're doing for the spring.) 

But many students still belong to the various teams. 

Last week I covered a biology class. The teacher was also the tennis coach. So, sixth period, I had to cover the tennis team. 

How does one do tennis remotely? The same way they've done every class. 

In the before times, I'd go out to the tennis courts with the kiddos and "supervise" while they practice. (For tennis, that would just be hitting balls around.) 

Now they're watching a video and answering questions online. 

So, in case you're curious, here are the videos they watched. First, Monday's video... 

And this was Wednesday's video...

The Audio Fix

Sunday night. Before I went to bed, I peeked at my email and discovered that the secretary from the school had already sent me all the info I'd need for my assignment Monday morning. 

Since it was available, I took a look at the lesson plans. And, bad news. The teacher wanted me to show a video. 

Deep sigh. 

I have lamented my video issues already. But JE pointed out the obvious: why don't I Google to see if there's a fix? Honestly, that thought hadn't occurred to me before. 

So, I looked on my phone that night to see what would pop up, and wouldn't you know it, there were a bunch of videos on YouTube. I watched two that had weird solutions. The third one I found had a simple fix that looked like it would do the trick. 

Monday morning, I logged in to everything a half hour early so I could play with the video settings. And. . . 

Didn't work. 

It seemed perfect. But the audio continued to sound like it was coming to me through a fan. Yikes.

I ended up having a prep period right after the monster fail in second period. Could I figure out a fix before sixth? 

I went back to the previous two videos that seemed way too complicated. The second video I watched Sunday night was where I went next. 

It was a bit easier to follow watching it on my computer, especially because I could pull up the things as the presenter described them. I made the recommended changes, and. . .

SUCCESS!!! 

The video actually played with good audio. Woo-hoo! 

Then came the test. Sixth period. (Which was the tennis team, so they had a different video than the biology class. But it was still a video.) 

Things did not go smoothly. By making changes to get the video to work, I had knocked out my microphone to speak to the students. When I started class, they did not hear my greeting. I was only clued in as the students sent messages in the chat of "Can you hear her?". 

I was able to tweak things so they could hear me, and I repeated my greetings as well as the intro for the day's assignment. Then it was time for the moment of truth. Would it work? 

I started the video. And. . . IT WORKED! 

Whew. 

Good thing too as I had this class for the week, and the teacher specifically said to show the video to the class. 

In case you ever find yourself in a similar circumstance, or you're curious as to what sound issue I was having, here's the video that provided the actual solution: 

Just to be clear, videos work just fine if I watch them on the computer. But the minute I attempted to present a video in a Google Meet, the sound issue happened. (If you want to get a demonstration of what we heard, go to about 50 seconds into the video.)

Too Much Information

Middle schoolers are way more fun virtually. Things that are annoying (or worse, disruptive) in person take on a certain whimsy online. 

Friday. I was covering a special ed middle school English class. Out of nowhere, a student turned on his microphone and announced, "I pooped my pants!" 

Me: "Thank you for sharing???" 

Then he turned his microphone back on to apologize. Apparently little sister took control of his computer to...? Perhaps she was trying to embarrass him. 

Mission accomplished. 

Mistaken Identity

Middle school math, special ed. They were working on order of operations. 

I recognized Seth as soon as I heard his voice. That he's in special ed did not surprise me one bit. He immediately spoke up with a question. 

"Are you on your phone again today?" 

Uh. . .

Okay, so full disclosure, I am on my phone way more than I really should be. But there comes a point after I've gone over the assignment for the day, I've released the kiddos to get to work, and I'm staring at a screen full of unblinking avatars. 

I thought I hid it better than that. . .

But another student replied to Seth. "No, that was a different sub. . ."

At which point I realized what Seth was asking. Apparently their last sub had accessed the class via her phone. 

I was accessing the class via computer. 

The class got pretty boring after that. The kiddos worked on the assignment. And I. . . pulled out a magazine and read. (They had few questions after we did the first problem together.) 

Do Not Disturb

Some things never happened while I was working on campus.

Monday. I was covering a tenth grade English class. They were working on vocabulary from their next book, Night. 

There was a tap at my window. 

My window overlooks the front door. On this day, plumbers were coming to work on a leak or something, and water was going to be shut off to our building. We had had due notice. 

The water shut off to the building is in our garage. (Some things were built really stupidly in the complex.) So, the plumbers needed access. 

And, uh. . . Yeah, I was home. But I was working. I was on camera. I couldn't just. . . 

I have roommates. When the plumbers knocked on the door, Luisa answered and took care of the issue. 

I like having my blinds open. It was a sunny day, and I like the light. But, perhaps I should keep them closed? Or, I might just need a sign, a "do not disturb" sign. 

But then again, we really don't get too many visitors during school hours usually.