Can You Handle Another Whine?

I was feeling spiffy at work--I had my technology figured out. The marvelous world of Google Docs was discovered. I could make PowerPointish presentations and publish them to the Web. I could set up a Google Calendar for each of my classes and link my presentations to the relevant date for each class. I showed my students how to access my school page, in which I had embedded my Google Calendars. My little sixth graders were going online at home to print off notes when they were absent or when they knew their handwriting was too unreliable.

For my small-group classes, the day's activities were based on the Google Calendars. "Go to your class's page. Find today's date. Click on the link that will take you to the story we're going to read. When you're done with that, go back to the calendar. Click the link that will take you to the questions I put in via Google Docs. Bring up a new window/tab and go to your Google Site [which I had them create--using Gmail addresses but not using them for email, which is blocked on our system--circumvention!]. On your page called 'Answers,' type in your answers to the questions. Refer back to the story that is also online. Make a link to the original story. When you're done, check someone else's work by going to their site. Make corrections as they check yours. Refresh your screen to see the updates they've made. If no one else is done, I'll check yours--right from the comfort of my own laptop..."

It was beautiful.

And then, last week, our admin sent out an email saying that something was slowing down our network to the point of being ridiculous. Google has updated itself with components that are constantly scanning and active, which apparently uses up our bandwidth. If the problem is Google, we lose Google. So it was blocked.

All of it.

No search engine.

No calendar with meetings listed and assignments by class.

No documents for kids to print out.

No sites for kids to take ownership of and be excited about using, even though they're in a remedial class.

No relatively safe searches.

And now...I start...OVER...