Glitches

I knew something was going to happen.  I had a feeling that something detrimental to the confidence I had developed in my first year of my 1 to 1 classroom was going to occur. I had a premonition that it was going to be a big deal.  And it happened.  Either the network had a hiccup or the LMS I was using momentarily went dark, and which it was is still a mystery, but either way it left an impression on me and my students that perhaps this new academic path we are on won't work.

Students in my Advanced Placement United States History class were taking an assessment on their iPads via Schoology.  This is a risky endeavor - I was well aware of that. Maybe a student would take a screenshot of the assessment and share it with someone absent or save it for a sibling who may possibly take my course in the future.  Luckily, I created a variety of test options that could randomize each student's test experience, but on this day my 7th period course all left with a common, shared, confused experience.  The hiccup, or glitch, from whichever end it came, prevented any student taking the exam to submit their responses.  It was a stealthy attack - only one student told me they noticed their device lost a WiFi connection (leading me to believe it was a network issue at the school), but maybe it was an isolated incident for this student.  Perhaps Schoology dropped the ball, or reset the server - I am not a network specialist, but that is a real thing, right?

Regardless of the why, I have to deal with "now what"?  The issue did not occur in my other two sections, yet many questions are going through my head: Do I dare re-test the students?  Is that fair? Do I give an abridged version? Do I completely excuse the exam and submit to the helplessness of the situation?  I don't get that time back, and each unit of study consists of three separate assessments, so maybe I haven't really lost anything by skipping this one.

But, alas, I did lose something. I lost a bit of conviction in my support of all things edtech.  This was a big deal to me.  I knew there were going to be snags and glitches along the way, but these were supposed to happen in the first days or first few weeks of the year - so I thought.  Surely, any issue I was going encounter was going to be while students were trying to figure out an app or how to electronically submit an assignment. I thought by week three the class would be firing on all cylinders. Well, problems will apparently occur at any time and the hard part in this is that they can be completely out of my control. With only 48 minutes to dedicate to a class it gets frustrating knowing that by the time an issue is addressed a lot can be lost. I still have the conviction that what I am doing with a 1 to 1 classroom will be a positive experience, but I just have to be OK with the unknown that I can't control.