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Attending College Remotely Is a Nightmare
It's been stressful, embarrassing, and compassionate all at the same time
It was the first day of school at San Jose State University. I logged onto my computer and joined my Modern English Lit class. The 34 students from different majors and backgrounds appeared as little boxes on my computer. Some students were distracted, with their family members walking back and forth in the background, others had to adjust their headphones constantly to avoid the music from neighbors. I had crammed myself into a corner of my bedroom so the camera angle would avoid my bed right behind me.
Studying fro m a shelter-in-place rented room in Antofagasta, which has one of the highest infection rates in Chile, was not the ideal scenario I imagined when I thought of my first semester studying in the U.S. But when the South American borders closed, there weren't any other options.
I had been surfing and rock climbing across the Americas for two years. I was in Mexico back in February when I received news that I'd received a Fulbright Scholarship for Foreign Students for the upcoming school year at San Jose State. Instead of returning to my native Vietnam, I decided to keep traveling through South America before school started in the fall. I booked a flight to Chile, with my sights set on Patagonia after that.
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I arrived in Chile in March. Nine days later, the border closed — with me inside. Some weeks after that, the Fulbright Program announced that if the university went online, Fulbright students would study from home until the next semester. San Jose State was also great about responding early and effectively as the chaotic situation unfolded in California, and moved most of their classes online. My fate was decided. I had no choice other than staying put in Chile and starting school virtually.
In July I attended the Fulbright virtual orientation, and made friends from other countries — there were hundreds of us who'd be doing international remote learning. One Indonesian student told me that one of her classes began at 4 a.m. in her time zone.
I was nervous that first day of school. I noticed myself tense up, anxious that one of my Chilean neighbors would start blasting dance music from the apartment upstairs. That's been his daily pastime during lockdown. From what I've noticed, this is normal in Chilean society, so nobody intervenes. I wonder how my professor would feel if she suddenly heard music blaring in the background when I turned on my mic to answer a question.
My internet wasn't that great. It might be stable in the morning, but then spotty right in the middle of one of my classes. I'd rush to reconnect my 4G hotspot so I didn't lose my participation grade just because the internet cut off.
Canvas Student, the popular remote learning platform, can be convenient — but it's stressful, too. Some of my courses require us to turn on notifications so that we know when new tasks and assignments are posted. However, since lecturers are also new to Canvas, they mistakenly send out several "assignments," which turn out to just be the syllabus or readings or other files. I was making pancakes one morning when I saw an assignment pop up that was due in four hours. I rushed back to my computer to check it out only to discover that it was just a schedule that the lecturer had categorized incorrectly as an assignment. There are 20–30 notifications per day, many of which are irrelevant. They drain me, but I can't turn them off or I risk losing points for late assignments.
One day, we were navigating through a document guide and posting comments to an online whiteboard tool when suddenly one of my classmates became visibly frazzled. His screen froze for a moment. He couldn't find the right button to close the video screen and access the whiteboard. A small child in the background was jumping on his chair and touching the laptop and keyboard. He was trying and failing to get the kid to stop, and eventually just hugged him and started crying in frustration. He buried his head in the child's back and wept. His video was on — all 30 of us saw it. He closed the laptop and the screen went black.
'We will find a way. We will get through this together.'
He rejoined the Zoom call some minutes later, after composing himself and situating the boy elsewhere. Our professor called his name and said, "You know, it happens all the time with this technology. Last week I burst into tears when I could not open the screen share. You are fine. Nobody is left behind. Next time if you guys see me struggle, you will understand that this is the norm these days." Many of our classmates also turned on their mics to reassure him with kindhearted words and jokes. The class got a bit noisy, and somehow, for a moment we reclaimed the normal atmosphere of an in-person class.
Even when I'm not navigating awkward video calls, studying online can be incredibly tricky. Since I'm studying from Chile, I can't order physical books like my classmates who live in the U.S. Even if I could, Amazon isn't prioritizing book shipping during the pandemic. Instead, I purchased e-texbooks, downloaded PDFs, and I take advantage of online resources like Mobi and Epub. Many PDFs don't come with text recognition — they're just photos. You can't highlight or copy the content you need. Instead, I have to retype it manually.
Different textbook companies provide different software programs; Kindle books work on the Kindle app, VitalSource textbooks must be browsed from the VitalSource Bookshelf app, and so on. Between the 14 books I have for my courses, I ended up with six different programs. Other books don't have a digital version at all, and the professor has to scan them all by hand. Collecting all of my source materials and notes for an essay means bouncing between several incompatible, clunky technologies. It's exhausting and tedious.
On August 19, right before class started, San Jose State announced that all classes were canceled because of unhealthy air quality from the wildfires, as well as a power outage. I sat on the beach in Antofagasta, a northern Chilean town, and felt the irony deep in my throat. I, in the Southern Hemisphere, couldn't attend class because of a fire happening thousands of miles away in the Northern Hemisphere. That night, one of my friends wrote an email to the professor and CC'd the class, explaining that her family had to evacuate in order to flee the wildfire, but that she would try to connect to a hotspot in order to show up. Because she didn't have stable internet, she had no idea it had already been canceled.
We resumed class three days later. The professor started our Zoom call by saying, "Before we start, I just want you to know that if you — or any student you know or a friend of yours — are struggling with having enough food, or Wi-Fi hotspot, or laptop, or… even a place to stay, please email me, or text me. I know people and places who can help, and I can help. We know resources. Please reach out to me or your other professors. We will find a way. We will get through this together."
The class went silent. We looked at each other on Zoom.
Our professor opened her book and started the lecture.
For the first time, I realized I was not looking at a computer screen, but at people on the other side of the screen, who are struggling just like me and offering compassion to each other in troubled times.
Posted by: brightcolours02.blogspot.com
Source: https://thebolditalic.com/the-nightmare-of-online-learning-2c18c772528f