This week’s assignment of creating a voice thread presentation about a problem or issue my school faces had me more than a little stressed out. First, it’s conference week at the school I teach at, and as any teacher can tell you, conference week is a busy week with little to no time to spare. Second, I didn’t do as good a job as I should have preparing and choosing a topic for this assignment. Finally, I had a great deal of trouble getting photos to upload at the VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos site.
So here I am frantically trying to get this assignment done. It is not due until tomorrow, but tomorrow I have conferences until eight o’clock in the evening, so I don’t see myself having a lot of time to work on it then. The two biggest reasons for my stress though, are my own fault. When I started planning for this project, the topic I was thinking about was one many teachers have trouble with: how does a teacher motivate the unmotivated student. I ran ideas around in my head and began to sketch out a plan. Everything seemed in order until it came time to start choosing images or documents to illustrate this problem on the voice thread presentation. Then it suddenly hit me: what pictures or documents could I use? Obviously, I am not going to post pictures of my unmotivated students. Posting a report card didn’t seem like a good idea either, even if the name were blacked out. Maybe I was tired, or maybe I’m just not very creative, but I really was having trouble choosing images and documents that could represent the problem of unmotivated students (fortunately, I don’t think that my problems stemmed from a lack of motivation, because that would simply have been far too ironic). So, I switched topics to one I have discussed several times throughout my studies at Walden University. I truly am excited about the strategies we are learning that incorporate technology into our classrooms. The problem is, with fifty computers for over 500 students, my school simply doesn’t have enough computers to use these strategies nearly as much as I’d like. This would be the new “problem” for my voice thread project.
Switching topics definitely raised my stress level. I was now getting a later start than I had wanted, but I had already familiarized myself with VoiceThread when I was over at a colleague’s house, so I wasn’t too stressed yet. Unfortunately, when I came home and tried to use VoiceThread on my own computer, I simply couldn’t get images or documents to upload to the site. I knew I was doing it the same way as when I was over at my colleague’s house, so I was more than a little frustrated. I watched the Laureate Education Inc. tutorial, and I watched the VoiceThread tutorial. The instructions are not complicated, but I still couldn’t get anything to upload. Finally I figured out the simple answer: my laptop hates me, and at this point, the feeling was mutual. I racked my brain for hours today, trying to get images to upload. Finally, I tried my old desk computer at school and amazingly, I was able to upload a document. The obvious solution was to use my school computer. Unfortunately, my school computer doesn’t hate me; it hates pictures. I can write a novel in the time it takes to upload or download a picture on that computer. I tried every troubleshooting option on the VoiceThread site but never found the answer to why my school computer could upload to the site, but my laptop could not. Finally, I was so frustrated and angry that I had to walk away and take a break. When I came back I was about to click on the web browser icon when I froze. I took a long look at the icon. The web browser icon on my laptop is the Mozilla Firefox icon. The browser on my school computer is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. I much prefer Firefox, but if you are trying to use VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos on the Firefox browser, you will get frustrated, angry, and maybe even a little paranoid about your computer hating you, because it simply won’t work. I hope that this post can keep others from having a similar experience, because there is nothing worse than having to apologize to your computer because you told it you hate it and called it bad names.
My computer has finally forgiven me and allowed me to complete my voice thread project. It can be viewed at http://voicethread.com/share/1895008/.
I enjoyed reading this post. I had to laugh a little. Comuters don't know how frustrating they can be!!!!
ReplyDeleteI too laughed long and hard with your frustration. I think anyone who uses a computer learns quickly that things can and will go wrong. A few years ago, when I was using my first laptop at home, I had some problems getting thrown off the access to the internet. Here I was at midnight (the most frustrating time), trying to work on a paper and I kept getting zapped. About that time, my husband comes home from work and little did we know he had accidentally set off the panic button on our alarm system. Next thing I know as I am beating my computer with my papers and screaming obscenities at it, there is a knock on the window to my computer room. It was the police who had come to check out the alarm...and seeing me hollering at the computer they thought something was wrong. I was so embarrassed (and I wanted to kill my husband), but I decided to simply shut it down and wait until the next day to complete my work.
ReplyDeleteMy advice - accept the fact that computers are not always going to work as you want them to and whenever you get frustrated by it, shut it down, walk away and take up the challenge when your mind is clearer. No sense going to jail over a computer.
Wow, you might be my technology twin. To be so advanced, these darn things can be so backwards sometimes. I swear, one of the first things I said to all of my Walden peers and my first teacher was, "If something can go wrong technologically for me, it will." It never fails. Most people will blame it on me for having a Mac, which are WAY more user friendly, but the world is run by Microsoft, which causes me some frustrations every now and again. I didn't have any hiccups on this assignment, and after I read this I giggled because I used Firefox the entire time without it giving me any trouble. :) My brick of a school computer is the one that gives me trouble (it's a Dell...) and I have more than once contemplated what they would do to me if I hurled it at a cinder block wall. You are never alone in your technology rooted problems my friend.
ReplyDeletePS...Margaret, your story is too funny! I got the best mental image in my head, and imagined myself in your shoes. The Internet has got to be the most fickle creation ever. At one point, my husband and I were convinced that our neighbors were stealing our password protected Internet and kicking us off whenever we got on. There is one thing the Internet is great at, and that is being horrifically slow or not working at all when you need it most.
ReplyDeleteI also struggled creating the voicethread. I just found out today that other members in our group could not listen to my thread. However, my experience ended well when I saw how great the rest of the groups threads turned out. Everyone else did a awesome job and I learned how a good voicethread should look, so the next time I attempt it with my class it will be done much better for student learning.
ReplyDeletereally nice story. its make me remember something...
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