Random Thoughts 14: I can see clearly now 2020 edition

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jcyclonee

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Here's a glimpse into just one day's chaos (yesterday) with the adjustment:
1. T.A. totally blew off my instructions for a simple assignment. I told him what I wanted, why, and stressed the fact that we're not increasing the workload for people now. So he created instead an essay assignment. I unpublished that, put up the assignment I wanted, and fought that out over e-mail in an uncompromising way. We'll be doing that again.

2. My Internet is wholly insufficient for uploading videos, so I really need to look at how to break things down further, and probably include linked videos more than videos created by me.

3. Phone solution for taping is done. Ran out of memory last night, but didn't know until after recording Part III of the class, so phone went ahead and deleted Part III. Gotta redo that today.

4. Gut feeling from the heat of the phone last night: it neededa break, so I'm uploading much later than planned or desired.

5. I still need to write the revised exam that goes live on Monday.

6. I still need to do an entirely different breakdown of the course material to adapt to the new environment with what I've learned.

7. I'll need to use my laptop for recording. That may or may not work, and equipment isn't available at any reasonable price to make a substitution. Essentially, what i have works or we're SOL as a group for now while I find new, creative ways around the problems.

8. There really isn't time to work around the problems, because we're this late in the semester. It's far from ideal.

All these scenarios from one day in the life of someone who got ahead of the curve in his planning and resourcing, and someone who understands technology.
My understanding of these things tends to be a lot better than my colleagues, and my obsession with planning is a lot greater. For all that, I'm sitting on a ******** right now.

I'm pretty sure that my issues are a pretty small version of what others are facing, and mine are bad. I'll speculate that less than 1% are procrastinating, but none of us really know what we need to do yet to do this well, or even just passably.
Be careful what video you link to. Actually, maybe you shouldn't be careful. That could be entertaining.

I don't know much about how it works but Vimeo offers 500MB of video hosting per week for free.
 

jcyclonee

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Apr 12, 2006
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Getting free Showtime on Charter Spectrum for a while. Not many good movies on but Boyz N The Hood was on earlier. Caught the end...I forgot how gripping Lawrence Fishburne's character was.
Not many good movies? Surely, you can't be serious.
Sorry, I just watched Airplane the other night on Showtime for free.
 

jcyclonee

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Apr 12, 2006
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FWIW - I have a bunch of faculty friends, and the scuttlebutt from them is that many of them are really struggling with the required technology, while others are simply procrastinating. Hopefully those issues will resolve, and soon.
Middle school teachers are certainly procrastinating. Our schools have no kids this week. The teachers are supposed to be preparing for next week and communicating with parents. As the department lead, my wife is communicating the ever-changing requirements to the teachers in her department. 5 members of her department were supposed to attend a district-wide teleconference yesterday. Only one did. She talked to one of the ones that didn't (a pretty good friend) about it and the response she received was, "I didn't think we really had to do anything until next week."
 

jcyclonee

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Apr 12, 2006
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Minneapolis
Had to do a parent move last night. Too much activity for the oldest to get classwork done. I had instill a basic dead week type atmosphere at the house. From 9-12 and 1-3 its quiet time. I also told the son to get his rear end out of bed and do work from 8 am on. Told him its quiet because his siblings are asleep at that time. He went for a run at 8:15 and seems to be following that schedule.

Only one person isn't really following it and its the wife. At least she takes a lot of naps so it will be somewhat decent. At first it looked like a great semester to take 18 credits, now it doesn't look that way. Some of his instructors have nothing up yet so that will get difficult to catch up on maybe.
College daughter and I are sharing our office. We set up a table in the living room just outside the office for my wife. I wonder which one of us will go nuts first.
 

Ms3r4ISU

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I had scheduled a haircut for the first part of April but obviously that’s not going to happen. And my hair is starting to get annoyingly long too. I’ve actually been thinking about using my electric razor and giving myself a buzz cut.
Before and after pix would be great!
 

cycloneG

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Lew gets his hair cut just before we go on trips (particularly when traveling to see my father). We haven't traveled since November. You do the math. :D
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Entropy

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Oct 27, 2008
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Here's a glimpse into just one day's chaos (yesterday) with the adjustment:
1. T.A. totally blew off my instructions for a simple assignment. I told him what I wanted, why, and stressed the fact that we're not increasing the workload for people now. So he created instead an essay assignment. I unpublished that, put up the assignment I wanted, and fought that out over e-mail in an uncompromising way. We'll be doing that again.

2. My Internet is wholly insufficient for uploading videos, so I really need to look at how to break things down further, and probably include linked videos more than videos created by me.

3. Phone solution for taping is done. Ran out of memory last night, but didn't know until after recording Part III of the class, so phone went ahead and deleted Part III. Gotta redo that today.

4. Gut feeling from the heat of the phone last night: it neededa break, so I'm uploading much later than planned or desired.

5. I still need to write the revised exam that goes live on Monday.

6. I still need to do an entirely different breakdown of the course material to adapt to the new environment with what I've learned.

7. I'll need to use my laptop for recording. That may or may not work, and equipment isn't available at any reasonable price to make a substitution. Essentially, what i have works or we're SOL as a group for now while I find new, creative ways around the problems.

8. There really isn't time to work around the problems, because we're this late in the semester. It's far from ideal.

All these scenarios from one day in the life of someone who got ahead of the curve in his planning and resourcing, and someone who understands technology.
My understanding of these things tends to be a lot better than my colleagues, and my obsession with planning is a lot greater. For all that, I'm sitting on a ******** right now.

I'm pretty sure that my issues are a pretty small version of what others are facing, and mine are bad. I'll speculate that less than 1% are procrastinating, but none of us really know what we need to do yet to do this well, or even just passably.

Ugh man. Ugh.
I did a lot of research due to seeing the writing on the wall and was able to devise a system for recording my lectures (make pdf of presentation (ppt or Prezi), load onto iPad with smart pencil, use Vittle Pro to make videos, upload to YouTube (non-searchable link). Had I not had that option, I'd likely be stuck either recording over PowerPoints, or attempting to live stream my lectures on Zoom.

It's disgusting the lack of resources made available to adjunct faculty. I've been doing my best to build handouts that they can use in lieu of labs and sharing homework/quiz material I've built over the years, and presentations. It does help that I teach the same basic courses year in and year out.
 
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CycloneErik

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Ugh man. Ugh.
I did a lot of research due to seeing the writing on the wall and was able to devise a system for recording my lectures (make pdf of presentation (ppt or Prezi), load onto iPad with smart pencil, use Vittle Pro to make videos, upload to YouTube (non-searchable link). Had I not had that option, I'd likely be stuck either recording over PowerPoints, or attempting to live stream my lectures on Zoom.

It's disgusting the lack of resources made available to adjunct faculty. I've been doing my best to build handouts that they can use in lieu of labs and sharing homework/quiz material I've built over the years, and presentations. It does help that I teach the same basic courses year in and year out.

I got ahead researching it, then got sick for a couple days, recovered, worked my weekend job, daughter got sick for a couple days, and then we went back to setting up for her school life at home.

What I'm doing is just making YouTube videos where I refer to the PowerPoints, which I upload to Canvas.

Edit: Now it's a discussion of whether to upgrade our Internet, because we can't upload videos in anything resembling a timely fashion, or just do something in almost all text, include some links to relevant videos, and basically punt altogether.

3rd semester in a row teaching this class, albiet in various versions. It's all ready to really roll, but I just don't have the resources to do this from home without making some significant investments in Mediacom, which makes me barf.
 

Entropy

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Oct 27, 2008
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Cedar Rapids, IA
I got ahead researching it, then got sick for a couple days, recovered, worked my weekend job, daughter got sick for a couple days, and then we went back to setting up for her school life at home.

What I'm doing is just making YouTube videos where I refer to the PowerPoints, which I upload to Canvas.

Edit: Now it's a discussion of whether to upgrade our Internet, because we can't upload videos in anything resembling a timely fashion, or just do something in almost all text, include some links to relevant videos, and basically punt altogether.

3rd semester in a row teaching this class, albiet in various versions. It's all ready to really roll, but I just don't have the resources to do this from home without making some significant investments in Mediacom, which makes me barf.
I came to the same conclusion last week. Spouse and I are both running Zoom meetings simultaneously, plus I'm uploading the videos.
We had been CenturyLink customers for 9 years. When they told me there was no option to upgrade my upload/download speed, we dumped them. Just finished the switch to ImOn on Tuesday.
I looked at Mediacom for a hot second, than remembered my experience with similar conglomerates in WI. .

Keep up the good fight man. It's nice helping out students and seeing their faces.
 

Ms3r4ISU

Me: Mea culpa. Also me: Sine cura sis.
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He was a carrot-top in his youth...and a "biker dude". At one point, his hair & beard were so long he could touch the ends of them together between his legs. :D
Sorry, that was TMI even for a Thursday morning. I now have visions......
 
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