The First Hurdle: Unreliable Technology (Yes, this is a rant!)

In designing and implementing the UbD unit planned in course 4: HS ESL Independent Vocabulary Study for the current coetail course I quickly encountered my first peril, unreliable technology—a critical challenge as the unit required the use of embedded technology to enhance student learning. Student learning was delayed by this first hurdle both in delaying the design of the online unit and in delaying student access to the online unit created.

Our school has seen a growth in the use of various technological media in education such as school blogs, panthernet (the school run Virtual Learning Environment that would host the online vocabulary study unit), powerschool and other Intranet and Internet based sites over the past three years. This growth has increasingly burdened the school server. As traffic increased, access to the school server and its Intranet based sites became increasingly unreliable. In the last three months, this burden on the server was made clear to users as students, teachers and parents were often unable to access these sites as they were timed out when trying (as the traffic was heavy) or the servers and connected sites were simply down and inaccessible. Fortunately, the school server was upgraded to handle this increased traffic just three weeks ago and all appears to be working well again. Unfortunately for my students and I, our online vocabulary study unit was designed and is lodged on panthernet so the time to design and implement the unit was unfortunately delayed by a good month.

But that is not the end of my technology woes in starting up this project. Did I mention I live in Bangbuathong, the village of the golden lotus. We have many temples, klongs, and open markets but reliable and fast Internet connections have yet to reach our small Thai village. Compounding the overburdened school server I had the weak IT infrastructure for web-based learning (or any use requiring broadband Internet) in the provinces to deal with when working after school hours. When traffic gets heavy across the lines in our village, connections time out, connections are dropped, and the Internet goes down about every twenty minutes. Patience and an optimistic nature are needed to attempt web-based learning in the village of the golden lotus!

Did I mention I live in Thailand? The recent Thai political unrest, red shirts on the streets of Bangkok demanding the ouster of the current PM, has resulted in (among other actions such as a declared State of Emergency and school closures) the government stepping in to block Internet access to sites used by the red shirts to communicate online. However, the government hand that came down on the Internet was heavy and affected access to many sites...educational sites...sites used for this online project, especially during the design stage.

Could there be any more technological trials? How about three new students? In the past three weeks, three new students have entered our class. We have bee working on panthernet, on the vocabulary study unit, where all the instructions, resources, and assessments are compiled online in one place for the students. With the new students, our first challenge was to get them logged on to the school computers/the school network. We had immediate success with two out of the three students. After trying (the 'old' students and I) all that we knew to do, we called and sent the unlucky new student denied access to Ed Tech. The next challenge was to get the students on panthernet. No success. After another call to Ed Tech, we were informed the students were too 'new' to be in the system yet, and that the system would sync around 3 pm at which time the students should be able to access the panthernet. To summarize this class, ... Time spent on technological problem solving: 40 minutes ... Targeted language learning time: 0 minutes ... Frustration level: High.

Reading Perils and Promises of Educational Technology, I saw myself in the following excerpted quote "... challenges are that computers break down in ways that the teacher nor student can fix immediately. ... Any breakdown can cause a class to waste valuable time, ... In this scenario, it is equivalent to not having enough books for the students to study." I felt helpless. All that I needed to show and give and work together on with the new students was in a place we could not access. Not confident these new students would know how or be able to access the site that night, I printed the various pages and resources they needed that day.

So perils, challenges, hurdles, woes, and trials a plenty in the design and implementation stage of my final course project; however, if indeed "the end justifies the means" than all the time and effort was well-spent as all the students are now off and running (jogging? speed walking?) through their independent vocabulary study.