While currently being virtual, most students have experienced difficulty in class, whether the link to zooms wasn’t working, their computer froze, their mics/sound didn’t work, etc. However, do you ever think about teachers’ experiences with technical difficulties and how they deal with them? 

Well, I’ve gathered a few statements from teachers here at Abington to share their worst problems that have occurred while teaching online.

Here’s what they had to say: 

Mr. Quigley: 

“While I was trying to produce the morning announcement with my first period class, I couldn’t hear anything from any source, but I kind of just recorded the announcements hoping that it’ll somehow work, and it did. I can’t hear anything though. The students can hear me but no one else.” 

I was in his English class when this incident occurred, and I could see the frustration on his face. At one point, he just put his hand on his head, and took deep breaths.

Mrs. Bucci:  

“2 horrible things happened to me and one of them (#1) happened just today: 

1. Losing internet connection in the middle of class
2. Receiving unwelcomed requests to access the meet during class”

Mrs. Lindinger:

“I haven’t had many technical issues so far. My biggest one would be trying to do breakout rooms in Google Meet with AP Seminar during the first week of school.  It was an absolute disaster!  I decided that day to transition to Zoom, but I had some issues with my account and it wasn’t allowing breakout rooms.  Long story short, I figured it out and all is well, but the interim included a fit if crying as all of the stress transitioning to remote learning just came pouring out of me!  Lesson learned – there’s always a solution if we can say clear-headed enough to find it!  Reminder:  Deep breaths, clear mind, move forward… we can do hard things.”

Anonymous:

“Today in our class was my first real tech difficulty. I accidently closed the web browser  that had the zoom meeting running and had no way to control my meeting where I had students in breakout rooms. Fortunately it happened in the last few minutes of class and I was able to email the students that I was ending the meeting and explained what happened. I learned that lesson and will hopefully not make the same mistake again.”

I was in the class when this incident happened, and I could just imagine how crushed I’d feel if this happened to me as well. Obviously these sorts of situations wouldn’t happen in person, however, when they do happen, it’s hard to reverse them. 

Mrs. Spicer: 

 “I haven’t had anything shutting down on me.  At least not yet.  BUT today for the online quiz it turned out that a few of my students couldn’t log on.  Tech is being overloaded with all kinds of various calls so it was really difficult to get to someone there to help.  That’s pretty much it.  Maybe I have been on the luckier side.”

Frau Eichler: 

“As you know, I have had multiple issues, ranging from me not being able to launch a Pear Deck properly and the class watching the pear deck run through the slides at hyperspeed to 32 7th graders in a German class being on delay while we tried to sing ‘Ich bin cool.’  This ended up being a very echoey version due to so many students on delay and having bad connections.”

Mr. Levandoski:

“I’ve had a few minor hiccups with wi-fi that called for some quick and creative problem solving, but I haven’t had anything I would call disastrous. I think the biggest tech issue I’ve had is trying to make sure I can hear and see everyone as much as possible. Teaching is a people business to me, so it feels like existing in a vacuum if you can’t share the experience with all of your students. It feels much more organic when as many as possible are on camera and audible. It almost feels like real life.”

Mrs. White:

“I would say the worst thing that happened is the sound on a video I was sharing was all muffled because my wifi was lagging for some reason.  The students thought it was hysterical because it sounded like a robot.”

In the era of virtual learning, countless teachers have struggled with the new technology required to effectively teach their. The next time a teacher faces technical difficulties in class, just remember that they are learning, just like us.