Time travel to a less tech-dependent time

I like to say I'm an old woman trapped in a young (ish) woman's body.  My immediate response for most things is to react quickly.  I'm naturally quick with a response, an emotion and thought.  I have learned to make myself  slow down so I don't say anything unwise and also to spare myself emotional highs and lows.

I'm learning that when I get nervous I have less margin with making myself buffer my reactions.  Especially with technology.

Yesterday I was supposed to present at an unconference online.  I had prepared my presentation--the slide deck was ready, I had dressed up for the presentation (even though it's summer and I don't have classes to teach) and I had added the last minute touches.  This even included a detailed sticky note to remind me of how long I had to present, play the Quizlet games with the attendees and when to be sure and address the Q&A.

20 minutes before I was to present I got an email from Zoom telling me my session was canceled.  It stung.  It made me feel rejected.  The email included that a recording of my presentation would be emailed to all registrants to my session, but I felt bad.  I was looking forward to the challenge of Q&A. (If you're into Ennegram numbers, I'm a 2 with a 3 wing.  The 3 in me really likes presenting.)  I was also looking forward to learning from others in the session.

Can we all get in a time machine and go back to 2003?  I got married that year and back then I was still teaching 2nd grade bilingual students in Ft Worth.  Those are sweet memories.  Everything was face to face.  I think I still turned my grades in to the office written out on paper.

I attended conferences face to face and made connections with other teachers.  They were kind and encouraging.  There was no snark.  (I hadn't found Twitter yet).

I like to use this blog as a place to process through my journey as a teacher.  I really enjoy relationships.  I feel like yesterday there was a party and I didn't get invited.  I'm sad.

Yes, I understand that sometimes tech fails.  I'm actually thankful for this because it is helping me develop empathy for my students (and other citizens of the world).  When things fail we all have to shrug our shoulders and not be ugly to the humans the fail happened to.  We have to accept we can't control everything.  We couldn't before, but somehow tech fails feel personal.  I know there's not a gremlin inside my computer making Zoom (or whatever other tech) not work, but it feels that way.

We're living in this awkward in between where we think technology can do x,y and z seamlessly.  Normally it can, but sometimes it just can't.  You can't kick technology and fix it.  (I'm embarrassed to admit I did that once with a big, clunky computer and it didn't have a great result.  Fun silver lining--the older brother of a first grade student fixed it during meet the teacher night.  Whew.  I'm still thankful for him stepping in and being really awesome.  I'm happy to report I have never kicked a piece of technology since).

I'll wrap up.  I told my sons (ages 13 and 11) that I'm not mad at the coordinator of the unconference that my presentation was canceled.  I understand it wasn't personal.  They encouraged me to mad at Zoom.  Yes.  I can do that.  Not super helpful, but I can put anger there.

Part of me is toying with pursuing instructional design in some way in the future.  This experience is adding fuel to that growing flame.  When technology gets in the way of great things (like sharing ideas with other educators) that's bad.  How do we fix it?  How can I be part of the answer?

Time machines.  Anyone have one I can step into? (I'm 99% joking.  1% of me is serious--let me know if you have one.)

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