Signal-loss Hurting Instructional Time Happens

I knew I was flying too close to the sun. After nearly two weeks of having things run relatively smoothly in terms of my internet, there it went this morning. Over the course of 90 minutes, I dealt with my home network failing and restarting several times. I was in the process of attempting to get my students started on an online pre-assessment when I realized it, and then heard the steps upstairs from me, telling me that the problem was clearly affecting the entire house. 

My class was patient, standing by and following whatever instructions they could see on the screen or hear in the moments when I was able to connect. However, they surely saw me hustling around my office, plugging and unplugging modems and routers, responding to texts from my wife (when the wifi's not working, neither is the wifey), and I thankfully muted myself before my frustration poured out in a deluge of profanity directed at my computer, my modem, Xfinity WiFi, and the entire internet. 

As my wife, frustrated by the internet cutting out as she was about to present to a large group, headed out the door to take the 30-40 drive to her office, she was remarking on all the things it could be. I love to find a place to lay blame, but I didn't have the energy. I gave the only answer I felt was acceptable in the moment - "these things happen". I had no other explanation, but I didn't want one either. In that moment, I needed to accept that this was entirely out of my control and not the result of equipment I had purchased or anything else that I had set up in terms of our account. It was still frustrating, and I'm especially grateful that it didn't throw off any lessons that I had planned, and that I had my second period prep to deal with the issue. So all things considered, if it had to happen some time, it might have happened today. Now it just needs to never happen again.

Otherwise, things have been going well. Perhaps "as well as can be expected", perhaps even a little better. I'll be posting in more detail about what I've learned about remote learning in the past two weeks, what I've done to improve the experience, and what I need to work on most urgently to engage more students and continue to engage those who have already bought in.  To be continued...