Virtual Takeaway

It’s the end of the first week of virtual learning for the University of Iowa and the big take-away for me is this: Always stay current with technology! I say this because I see the challenge that even basic technology presents for one of my instructors who has chosen, prior to forced virtual instruction, not to use any online component for teaching. Every other instructor I’ve had at UI has, at the very least, used the ICON site to upload a copy of the syllabus and list of readings for the semester. How much this teaching aid is used is up to each individual instructor.

After the first week of this Spring 2020 semester, one of the students asked this particular instructor when he would be publishing the ICON component for our class. He simply stated that he’s never seen a definitive reason to use it, so he never has. In fact, he challenged the class that if anyone of us could provide him with a legitimate reason for him to “need” to use it, he would publish our class site on ICON. Fast-forward eight weeks (give or take a week), and we found ourselves faced with a pandemic, quarantine, and an actual NEED to make use of the technology designed to aid virtual learning.

We faced the entrance of spring break knowing that there was a slight possibility that our semester would end on a virtual note. Other instructors were starting to send preliminary plans and information for how they anticipated classes would proceed in the event of a non-face-to-face instructional format. Spring break ended with nearly all of the teachers reaching out to present a plan for virtual instruction. But no information from this professor.

An extra week was tacked onto spring break to allow professors extra time to modify their classes and prepare for our new normal. Most instructors sent out surveys to ask students what they anticipated their availability might be for synchronous versus asynchronous and other options to help them prepare material in the best way to meet the needs and capabilities of as many students as possible. I kept checking the ICON site to see if this instructor published the class yet. Nope. No word from him at all about what to expect.

The end of our extended spring break came and went. I felt confident in completing all of my other classes but was still left wondering how to prepare for the first Tuesday class in the coming week. Should I start reading the next novel on the list? Was he going to change the list of texts we are reading? Finally, I decided to contact him. He replied fairly quickly to say that he was still planning what to do.

Late Monday afternoon he finally emailed the class to inform us that he would be holding Zoom class sessions at the same times as our normal class, every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:00 a.m. He is still not using the ICON site for our class. I get the impression that he simply doesn’t know how to use such technology, and that is the real reason why he never has tried to use it in the past. That is why he challenged our class with providing him an adequate reason to convince him to use it. None of us could.

Even in the face of quarantine-enforced virtual learning he’s not using it. His daughter has been helping him figure out how to use Zoom, and even that has been a rocky experience. I guess, at least we still have a way to finish this class virtually. But it makes me want to stay current, no matter what technology changes may come. I never want to get to the point where I choose to avoid learning something new. Always be open to learning!