Today was a day of learning in our district, and I'd like to hope that all involved learned a few lessons.
First, when they were introducing the keynote speaker, the superintendent and his chief of staff were experiencing a technical difficulty they were obviously unaware of. After ten minutes with a buzzy, echoing audio feed that transformed their voices into those of TV aliens, the screen went black and a few minutes later the live event returned with all systems go. That is, until the keynote speaker tried to play a video in the first part of her presentation, and instead all we saw was her, obviously enjoying the video which we could hear, but not see. There was no chat enabled, and so she went on, obliviously, until the next clip didn't show either, and then we went back.
I extend all involved a lot of grace; in fact the next session I participated in was a straight up video call, and with no restrictions on the participants, I unpinned and re-pinned the ASL interpreter for all 350 of us at least twice while I adjusted my own view (in an attempt to clear the screen of all the people who were asked to have their cameras off, but didn't get the message.) Oh, and I'm pretty sure I stopped the recording for everyone when I tried to switch the call from my lap top to my phone.
No question! Technology is tricky. That's why we teachers always check and double check the settings on any virtual meeting we are running, because kids, people, humans, whoever! click where we shouldn't.
But it just seems like by now?
They should have gotten that right at the top, too.
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