Years ago when I taught at a school which was undergoing management changes, it was about 2-weeks into the semester when suddenly the chairman of the department announced there was no budget to make copies. Almost every class up until then, I had made at least 2 pages of handouts and copied them for each of the students. One page would be the study materials; the other practice materials for them to complete and hand in. But suddently, I could no longer do that.
Luckily, the school had installed projectors in every room. By connecting a laptop to the projector, teachers could show slides and videos. And so began my first forays into the wonderful world of Powerpoint and creating slideshows. By the end of a year, I had more than a hundred slideshows – one for every class meeting.
Post-pandemic, in the school year 2022-2023, it seems the majority of my students greatly prefer classes online. I am with them.
About 1.5 years ago, I broke something in my hip. Now I can barely hobble around with a cane and am much more comfortable in a wheelchair than standing. I am so grateful that I am not in pain when sitting and that I still have the use of my eyes and fingers and mind.
So – if it hurts a LOT to try to navigate stairs and long halls to get to a classroom, if I cannot find anyone to wheel me there in the wheelchair, should that mean I cannot teach?
Happily, no. Pre-pandemic, probably yes. But the world has changed. The technologies came so far with the impetus of the pandemic lockdowns (people were sitting at home thinking about how to do stuff). Another gratitude: so grateful for the internet, the browsers, the electricity that allowed communication and connection even when we were not supposed to leave the house.
Can you imagine what a pandemic quarantine would have been like pre-internet?
I polled my students about which they prefer: online only, hybrid with most classes online but teachers available to meet in person, or classroom only. More than 70% said they prefer online classes for lots of good reasons.
Some of my favorite comments:
“In my opinion it’s more comfortable and i can lay on bed or eat or go to toilet whenever i want and i still pay attention.
I can replay the lesson video clip always and can record the video class. So, I can practice, learn, study, and improve my English whenever I want.
Whenever I am sick, I can study online classes anytime and anywhere.
In my opinion I think online class is so comfortable.”
At this school, clothing counts. Students are supposed to get dressed in uniforms to attend classes. Teachers are supposed to dress up to look “professional.” Online classes allow you to put on a shirt and who cares what else you are wearing (or not). Pajamas are okay.
Online classes this past year have been challenging. Students do not want to turn on their cameras and I have had to beg them to turn on their microphones and talk to me. So often I have felt I was presenting a lecture into an empty room. Actually I stopped going to the classroom after several days when no students appeared. It was just too lonely to broadcast from an empty classroom – and the computer there was Windows 7, not exactly up-to-date.
There are many reasons I am committed to increasing my knowledge and experiences of online teaching. I am now familiar with Google Meet, Skype, Zoom, and using Streamyard to stream broadcasts on YouTube or Facebook. I taught this year using Microsoft Teams which had a huge learning curve. It had many limitations and I still do not fully trust the results. But MS Teams was really useful as a meeting ground for classes with 50 students or more. It did help record activities and the class itself for playback.
For me with my injured hip, online classes have been a godsend. The newest technologies and access to a “metaverse” of information makes school books seem so outmoded. I basically threw out the books and pulled everything I taught from the internet – lectures by famous people, videos by other English teachers on topics that they explained better than I could.
But the real kick starter for me now to delve further into online teaching is that I have been warned – firmly – that when I reach age 70, I will no longer be able to teach at this university in Thailand. I applied to teach at colleges in Malaysia and was accepted but then rejected when they learned I was over age 55. Mandatory retirement does not make a lot of sense these days when “70 is the new 50” but there it is looming before me in the next few years.
So I am determined that my “twilight years” will be challenging and fun as an online teacher. I have a LOT of things to teach from years of accumulated experiences, a lot that I truly enjoy finding ways to share. I am thrilled to be numbered among the “early adopters” of home computers. I realized the other day that it’s now 40 years since I started staring at a computer screen. I got my first computer – a CPM metal box – back in 1982. It’s been nonstop ever since. I can’t remember a day spent without a computer.
So being online is second nature to me. Creativity and curiousity about the world are vital to my happiness. So online teaching seems to be a way forward. Online Teaching can be such a creative process, even if you are doing it from a wheelchair or your bed.
Teviot Fairservis CV 