Last week, I was looking forward to presenting to a group of new HE tutors who were just starting their Postgraduate Certificate course. I had been asked to tell them about the technology enhanced learning tools. So, the day before, I went to the location and checked that the computer was working and that the internet could cope with a video that I was going to show. It did.
I didn't twig that the mouse was a Mac mouse; I was just using it as normal. Although I'm familiar with Macs - I have a Macbook pro - I'm not familiar with their mouses.
On the day - I was assembling things and I knew that some of them were on a new memory stick. Here's a way to impress one's new boss - I put the stick into the computer, to show what I'd been doing and the stick didn't work. ALL MY WORK... there was a backup but it was IN A SAFE PLACE... (a euphamism for "I'm not sure where...").
After trying several options with the stick and the computer... I suddenly realised that I'd put the stick in the wrong way. This particular slimline stick didn't stop me from putting it in upside down.
In the afternoon, I started to give my demonstration and I couldn't log into the VLE. And the hundreds of times that I had logged in before... just when I wanted to demonstrate some great features. And I couldn't log in. I had been locked out. In trying to recover, I suddenly noticed the mouse and that it was different (without two buttons) and this didn't help as I wanted to right click. Eventually, I recovered, but things were a little sticky for a few moments.
So - I need to be aware of a plan B. Not necessarily the stick either. I'm working on it. I need to be aware that if I make any changes, then the backup also needs to be changed too. Also, during a demonstration, to go quickly and seamlessly to plan B, as if that were the plan A.
And to be aware of the many alternatives that are in a room when I present.
The video worked fine by the way. But it showed me that I will never present myself as "the expert", as things are just as likely to go wrong when I'm using the technology.
During the morning, I had spent some time helping someone by ascertaining
whether some software was working. It required me to put in my user name
and password to enable publishing to the VLE. Unfortunately the
settings weren't correct but eventually I managed to succeed. This may have caused the lock-out.
