Real "Old" School

I used the term Old School with my students today, but it was not related to the Online Learning Day we had last week.

During first block this morning, the bulb in the projector for the Smart Board burned out.  I wouldn't say I rely on the Smart Board, but when you have everything planned to present a certain way and that way is no longer available, things become somewhat complicated.

We had to go "old school."  We used the white board to work problems that students needed to see for their notes.  Unfortunately, the white board is not in an ideal location for class.  It is off to the side, since it is rarely used.  Students seemed to adapt fairly well, but we still have some back-tracking to do tomorrow from a bit of lost time when we were trying to figure out the projector issue.

By 4th block, we had a temporary projector up and running to use the documents we had originally prepared for the lesson.  All in all, not a huge problem, but it did make me think about how important it is to be prepared and flexible.

Depending on content of the lesson, this switch could have been more difficult to make.  I'll be keeping this in mind as I plan future lessons and try to think of alternative plans I could potentially use!