Well, I think I survived the three weeks of online classes with which we started fall semester...
Looking back on the three weeks online, I recall some tricky times. Once when I had the American Culture class in break out rooms talking in pairs about September Seasons (school, football, tv, 9/11), I left one room and accidentally clicked the button for end the meeting instead of for leave the room! Luckily, after last year and most of spring semester this year online, the kids are used to such things happening, and I was able to quickly restart the meeting and have all of them (I think...) rejoin so we could finish the class. Each Thursday afternoon, when I do back to back classes from 2:40 till 5:50, I started feeling lightheaded and hearing my voice from a distance from around 4:30 till the end, which was disconcerting indeed. Luckily, it didn't really happen during my Wednesday or Friday classes (then the classes are mostly smaller with videos on for graduate school or my university seminar, whereas the Thursday ones are biggish with videos off, which may be why they're more challenging), and luckily we had an early Thursday holiday for the first week, so I only had to do two online days for Thursdays. There were plenty of good times! A girl who said her favorite food was avocado, especially cooked with basil pasta; a girl who said her cat's name is Lily though her cat is black; a girl who used the words "leisurely stroll" in her speech; a funny boy who said he loved me after our first online class (!); some good questions and comments from students about the novel Wonder in my seminar; fine times talking about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Anne of Green Gables with my graduate students; some great questions from great students in my American Culture class. I continued to be impressed that my meeting links actually worked (I have eight different classes to set up) and that 98% of the students attended the classes on time. It was good to wake up an hour later than for in person classes and to not need to worry about clothes so much and to not have to commute to and from school. But now I reckon that the stress of worrying about doing classes in person will be less than the stress of wondering if I'll hold up for online classes and the stress of actually doing them in person. I bet I won't get the headaches and light headed far voice symptoms on campus in classroom in person face to face. Here's hoping that's so!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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