Bureaucratic Technology Blues

Well, I didn't get the blue screen of death yesterday, but everything else that could have gone wrong with computers that I needed to teach, did.

First Class

• Mouse battery dead. Tech Support comes to the rescue. Cool.
• CD drive doesn't seem to be working. Inserted CD not registering. Hmm, try another CD. Nope. Nada, zilch. Need to give diagnostic listening test, so with quick thinking, I try the DVD player. Not as convenient to use as the computer, but does the trick. Whew.

Second Class

• Classroom is like Fort Knox because of all the expensive computer equipment. Must get room opened. Waste precious set-up time doing so.
• Main computer for teacher presentations in freeze mode. Have never seen this before, nor do I know how to undo it. Tech Support for this department speedily arrives before the class starts.
• While Tech Support is there, I neglect to test the projector I will need. Halfway into class, turn on said projector. Not hooked up to my teacher computer. One gracious student who studies Comp. Science (Hi S. S.!) tries diligently to help. Nothing.
• Department Tech Support arrives again. A few minutes of fiddling, and I'm up and running.

But my favorite SNAFU for this class was a scheduling mishap. Most of our students checked their schedules through the university's online system last week. Last week, I caught a time error for my second class that read it started at 5 p.m., when it really starts at 4 p.m. The proper people were notified, and necessary change made last Thursday.

Despite this, I still had four students with an old schedule arrive at 5 p.m. as I was wrapping up my introductory lecture. Grrrrrrrrr. Not only was this an inconvenience for these students, it was a little embarrassing for me as I profusely apologized, even though the situation was out of my hands.

Let's hope my technology blues clear up.