Today was finals day. Two classes had their finals due this afternoon. These were done remotely and submitted online. To celebrate we, of course, went for a bike ride. It was a fast 20-miler, and then I got right back to it. I started the day knowing I had 144 papers to read, and knowing that 48 of those were going to come in today.
And for that hour, just a bit more than an hour, my empty mind drifted over to the questions I’d asked on the two finals. One class had four simple questions. Two hypotheticals I was asking the students to work through, and then two questions that were a tiny bit subjective. In the other class I had the students watch a program and answer a bunch of questions about it. You can run through all of those questions quite a few times while you’re not thinking about anything else.
I hope I caught all of my typos. I hope the students did well. I hope it was all clever enough to let them show what they’ve learned, how they’re thinking, what they’ve possibly gained from their time in my class.
Not too long after we got in, Canvas, the platform the university uses for online classwork, crashed and died.
One class had finished their allotted final window. The other was mid-final. About four people hadn’t submitted their final yet. Well.
Also, my online students have their submissions due on Monday. Who knows how long Canvas will be down? And some of those students manage very regimented schedules. Well.
There was nothing more from the university than that. During finals. Well.
(Update: It came back overnight, in fact, not too long after I shared my contingency plans with all of those students with work still outstanding. Problem solved. Can kicked down the road. Everything is now due next Tuesday.)
But I can start grading that one final right now. (Mini-update: They’re doing well.)
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
That is the view at Ballymastocker Strand.
