One of the impacts of Pray-Harrold being closed for the year is that the classroom technology has been a crap-shoot. I recently received an email from a faculty colleague and EMUTalk.org regular who is more than a little frustrated about teaching in the Roosevelt Auditorium:
“I play a video clip–the sound finishes before the video even starts! My students are beyond laughing at the technical difficulties and I am felling like an idiot–I plan, prepare and try to give visual images of our topics but it has turned into an embarrassing failure–even power point aided lectures are a debacle. I have talked to a few people and they tell me they have just given up on that part of the class because of the troubles. I think folks are just doing their best and adapting to ‘swing’ etc–reverting to straight lecture with no visual aides. Our students are suffering and it is driving me nuts! I need help–I think others do as well….”
I know this is bothering others, for sure. One of my colleagues who teaches a writing class that involves a lot of technology (I teach the same class, actually) has come pretty close to abandoning the technology component for the year because the room he is teaching in simply can’t support it. And this same colleague has told me some stories about things like computer carts disappearing from the classroom with no notice.
These stories don’t surprise me a bit.
But like I said, it’s a mixed bag. I’m teaching in a computer lab in Sill Hall that has worked out pretty well, though it is far from ideal. And I’m also teaching online, which is one teaching situation where the technology does actually work.
Anyway, what do folks think? Is there anything to be done?
