Microphones Got Me Down, But I Didn't Stay Down

It took two weeks to take roll correctly, and it was worth it. Let me explain. 

I have a roll call tradition. I ask every student to say his/her name in alphabetical order. This works great at the beginning of a "normal" school year. Kids are seated alphabetically and can easily see who is the next person to call out a name.  

Well, with online learning, we don't have desks to sit in. To help my students, I placed a roster of the students' names on a Google Slide. All I wanted to do is have my students read their names in order as they appear on the list. It seemed like a simple task. I didn't think much of it. 

Day 1: My students took 6 minutes to read 32 names. Why? I had no idea. I was frustrated and wanted to give up immediately. I took a breath. Got through the roll call and hoped we would do better tomorrow.

The rest of the week, my students took roughly 4 minutes to say all 32 names. We had made progress but not enough. This should take less than a minute. By Friday I was ready to give up. I felt like this was a complete waste of time. 

Over the weekend, I reminded myself about why I started this tradition in the first place. I made a commitment to have my students speak at least three times each class period. The first time would be during roll call. The second time would be during my opening traditions. The third time would be during class. My students on average speak much more than that, but I wanted to set this minimum expectation. I wanted my students to be comfortable speaking in my class, and I wanted them to know that I expected them to speak in my class.

Week 2: I approached Monday with a new attitude about roll. I wanted to know what was going on and why it was taking us so long to read 32 names. Here is what I learned.

1. Students didn't have microphones
2. Students needed a better microphone
3. Students unmuted and muted too quickly so the sound was cut off
4. Students spoke too softly
5. Students couldn't see the Google Slides and Zoom at the same time (think 12 inch monitor)

There were a number of other issues, but I realized that I needed to be more empathetic and more explicit with my instructions and expectations. I explained to my students that simply having microphone issues wasn't an excuse. They were going to have to speak in other classes. "This is school," I told them. "You have to be ready and able to participate like you would in a classroom." I worked with my students to trouble shoot all of their issues. We were on blogs and sharing different products that could be plugged in and used as a microphone. It was really a cool moment. I didn't realize how much tech support they would need for just the microphone. We even talked about Internet lag and how they needed to have their mic unmuted seconds before they spoke into it so that they could be heard.

I am happy to report that after this learning curve, my students can take roll in about 90 seconds. I'll take it. This is a huge improvement. More importantly, this was an important lesson for all of us.