Been locked in for a solid two weeks now. The weather, as usual for Ohio, is grey, cool, and windy, though it's expected to zoom up into the 50s in a few days. I guess I'm getting used to things, but I'm having trouble adjusting to my future. Apparently, I will never again (or at least for a year or two) actually touch another person or be close enough physically to share a meal or a beer or cup of coffee. I never hear a voice that isn't a YouTube video, and I have no particular use for my own voice. These four rooms are my world.
Yesterday was a defeat/victory of sorts. I had the insane idea of recording a face-to-face video for my students—which led to about four hours of screaming frustration. I eventually gave up on the video, though at the end of the four hours or so I did get the buggy software to do its work. Now I'm so angry at the software that I doubt I will ever use it. (Wrote a message to the software company and got an "it's not our issue" response. In my reply I pointed out that I'm on the committee deciding whether to renew their license and I'm going to recommend against it.)
The world of education is full of computer programs that look great, have glowing testimonials, and simply don't work. There was the grammar handbook software at Akron which looked so good in the beta version, but their update (launched just as school began) did nothing whatsoever, resulting in that publisher being permanently banned from the Akron English department. There was Macmillan's Launchpad, which works beautifully for teachers, but not for students. Now Kaltura, which (on its good days) is a video-capture software with bells and whistles, but has a very unfriendly user interface and a company that does not answer end-user questions. They refer everything to our local IT people, who aren't really specialists.
Possibly the isolation is getting to me. I suspect that may be the case.
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