Nothing’s worse than when a lesson is derailed by failing technology!
Posted by: kmriebau in Advice ColumnIt was a cold and rainy morning…
On my way to the office this morning it was raining and cold. It reminded me of my stint in London and I was having frightening weather flashbacks - but at least I knew that here in Colorado, it is only temporary! Anyways, I saw a guy riding his bike out there carrying a gas can and it got me thinking. This dude isn’t riding to get his can filled for his lawnmower or something - it’s raining! He must be desperate and he must have done what I have admittedly done before myself… run out of gas in the car. Now when I did it, I was just a young punk trying to push the limits of how long I could drive before having to drop five bucks at the station again (yeah sure). But like I said, it got me thinking about all the “stuff” in our lives we have to maintain. Lightbulbs burn out at home, we replace them. A room gets dirty, we pick up, vacuum, and dust. Our car indicates that we need more gas, we hopefully heed its warning and fill up the tank. We know that if we never get the oil changed in our car, or rotate our tires, we will drive the thing straight into the ground and we’ll be relying on mass transit from there on out. We just know that most things have to be maintained if we want them to work, look good, and do what we expect of them! Imagine if we didn’t maintain ourselves… I don’t even want to go there.
The Point
For some reason many of us at school, home, and the workplace choose to ignore the tell-tale signs that our gadgets like computers, visualizers, projectors, etc. need to be maintained, too! I guess many of us are under the impression that technology doesn’t have to be maintained and it will… just work. Oh man, I almost fell out of my chair laughing after writing that last line! You should know that there are filters that need to be cleaned once a month on your projectors so the life blood of air can soothe and cool their firey hot bulb in them - which cost a few hundred dollars to replace. Extend the the bulbs life and save yourself the hassle and money of replacing the thing. When your computer says it needs to be updated, don’t be annoyed by the pop-up window every time it shows up in a lesson or in the office because you keep closing it… deal with it! There is a reason those annoying update bubbles want your attention - they’re your friend (who is needy and calls 20 times a day)! You’ll know if you need to update by seeing a shield in the system tray in the bottom right of your screen.
(I know, I know, there are two… it’s the straight up and down one - ridiculous, I agree). If your computer is running super-slow, you may need to reimage it or defragment the drive (if I just spoke jibberish, contact your tech person to take care of this) - this is equivalent to “spring cleaning.” Update other software if needs be (not everything has an automatic update). Physically clean and dust off monitors, keyboards, computers, filters, lenses, etc. at least every couple of weeks, and definitely no longer than every month. Turn stuff off when you’re not using it - especially at night, and Mother Earth will appreciate it, too. Keep your stuff running optimally, take care of it, and it will last a long time and be more reliable. We all know that nothing’s worse than teaching when the instructional technology fails and we have a classroom full of students waiting to erupt into chaos like a ticking time-bomb… More importantly, we’re inadvertently letting down our students who deserve high quality lessons if they’re to have a chance to achieve in the 21st century.
Don’t ignore the signs, the bubbles, the indications, the time to maintain your high-tech gadgets or you too will be left out in the cold, cold rain - now do yourself and your students a favor and go check your stuff!
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