Just over ten years ago I spent a week teaching all my classes online to protect my chemotherapy-ravaged immune system from whatever toxic crud was making its way around campus at the time--but that was just one week, and my students were still able to assemble as needed or visit the library and other campus services.
Now comes word that we're required to teach all of our classes online starting Monday, with no end date in sight and no expectation that students will be on campus at all. Good thing I have the rest of Spring Break to figure out how to make this work.
The challenges are daunting: my textbooks and course materials are on campus and so, I suspect, are my students'. My home internet service is stronger than ever but still not strong enough to allow streaming video or synchronous chat; I could drive five miles up the highway and piggyback on the wi-fi at the McDonald's while giving lectures and leading discussions from the parking lot, but I think I'd rather take the risk of sequestering myself in my campus office.
Not that the risk is high. There are no known COVID-19 cases in the area, although it's the unknown cases that have everyone frightened. I was supposed to travel to North Carolina this week to visit my Dad but got waylaid by an earache accompanied by a nasty case of vertigo; before the visit was cancelled I was repeatedly offered this helpful bit of advice: "Don't get near anyone who might have the virus." Okay! Given the flexibility of the word might, I think my best bet is just to lock myself in the basement and not come out until the last person standing sounds the All Clear.
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