When Technology Fails (Or At Least Lets You Down)

Repeat after me: Technology is my friend. Technology is my friend. Technology is my....

Yes, it's true, even if it let's you down. Think about it! Have your friends EVER let you down just a little? Maybe? Once in a while? Why should technology be any different just because we depend upon it for every little things these days?

We are not a 1:1 school when it comes to technology devices (with almost 1800 students this year and a projected enrollment of over 2000 for next year, our budget won't stretch that far!), but we have a lot of Chromebooks. I mean A LOT of Chromebooks. (Thirteen carts of 30-36 Chromebooks for checkout, plus our CTE department has their own carts.)

These carts are reserved, usually well in advance, for research, online projects, and....testing! Yes, our state has a lot of online testing for every subject throughout the year.

None of this is a problem until the server crashes (rarely) or the Internet connection is cut by construction workers (very rarely, but it happened twice at my last school in the same school year) or.....there is a district-wide issue with Google for all Chromebooks. Just Chromebooks. On a day when the entire Science Department is testing! (Our departments have assigned test days to prevent students from having 4 tests on the same day.)

Now what to do? If the library is available, one class can come use all of my desktops if the issue is reserved to the wireless devices. However, that only takes care of one class...when over 20 would need to use the computers! (But if it's already reserved, like today, it's not an option!)

So....when using technology, here are my suggestions:

1. Back-up plan #1: have a copy of the test you can display on the Smart board (if all technology is not down) and students can mark their answers on their own paper. This prevents you from needing to run last-minute copies. Your entire lesson plans aren't changed with this option although you will have to be hyper-vigilant for wandering eyes with some students.

2. Extra review day: immediately reserve devices for tomorrow (and the next day) in case everything is working by then. Spend the day with an extra intensive review session. Students will benefit from this. A few students who studied really diligently last night might be upset, but I doubt many students would complain if the test was postponed one day. Unfortunately, this will involve some tweaking of the next few days of lessons, but educators have to be flexible anyway!

3. Have a class set of paper tests locked away for every test. You don't have to rush to make copies, your  plans don't change, and students write answers on their own paper. Don't forget to have modification copies for IEP/504/ELL students. This is probably your best option for preserving your lesson plans in case all technology has failed you. If you use plastic sleeve protectors, you know students won't write on them and the sleeve protectors are reusable.

The great thing is that technology rarely does fail in such a grand gesture as it did at our school today. For the most part, it does make teaching easier in many ways compared to how it was when I started in education in the early 1990s. So don't curse it when it crashes, but always have a back-up plan "just in case" and you'll be fine.

(And, of course, always hope tech services figures things out very, very quickly.)