Gosh, I feel sorry for the students.
They have to get their Fukuoka University education via this messy and imperfect and raw and rough around the edges long distance learning system that's a hodgepodge of different announcements and approaches and technologies and devices and services etc. Most of our students probably mostly use smartphones, so we teachers have been told we should conduct the Webex "meetings" with student videos and mics off, and our own video off, so that the students are taking classes by listening to our voices coming out of their speakers or into their ear phones etc. Luckily, we are able to "share" pictures and slides and applications like Word and PowerPoint and Photos and Safari etc. with the students, to help them follow our lectures and visualize the topics. But how will I ever teach English Conversation next week?? Three classes of it! Yesterday I taught my first two classes, a Reading and Writing class for thirty second-year Pharmacy majors and a Seminar for nine third-year English majors. I guess, all things considered, they went OK. I mean, judging by a post-class survey I gave both classes, most of the kids could hear my voice and see my screens OK, and half of the Pharmacy class could understand most of the class, and all of the seminar students, but... but... It takes a leap of faith to start talking and have no way to judge the reactions of the people you're talking to. Are they hearing you? Are they listening to you? Are they understanding you? Really? In future, I'll have to call on students randomly and turn on their mics to ask them how they're doing now and then. And ask them questions about the class, or ask for their comments about what we're doing, and so on. I will invite them to chat comments/questions to me (I turn it off for each other for fear of their abusing the privilege). Yesterday's classes were just the first usual introduce myself and the class with syllabi handouts kind, lasting less than the 90 min normal class time. I just don't think the students or I can survive for 90 mins of that kind of class... A couple interesting things happened. One boy I communicated with via chat after the first class because he didn't have our textbook yet (Charlotte's Web!) said when I suggested talking with his mic on voice to voice that his computer has no mic! Yikes... it'll be difficult to get them to say anything if their devices have no speaking capabilities! And one girl in the second class joined the meeting with her video on, so I could see her big and clear at her home! I didn't want to damage her enthusiasm but I finally hinted that they're supposed to have their videos off. And one girl from that second class stayed after to talk voice to voice mics on about the homework, needing clarification about it, which was nice. One of the frustrating things is that our university has paid for Webex but not Zoom, fearing the latter's weak security, so we pretty much have to use Webex, which is not so easy or pleasant or effective to use as Zoom. I particularly miss (or will miss during English conversation classes and my Introduction to American Culture and Literature class with 106 people next week) the way you can quickly sort students into mini-groups of any size ("breakout rooms") in Zoom, whereas that's basically not possible in Webex. I also miss Zoom's virtual background... ANYWAY, I survived (and I guess the students did too) the first day of classes in the new school year in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. Good luck to us all!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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