VC finally announced that we are to go to online teaching from next Monday -- but headed her email with THERE IS NO CORANAVIRUS ON THIS CAMPUS.
The latter is not true, of course, as they sent round an email over the weekend that someone in senior management's got it.
Campus and facilities are to remain open; lecturers are encouraged to come in and continue teaching via online means from their offices in case students still want tutorials.
Absolutely no provision is being made for how lecturers are meant to teach, how exams will be held -- usually SMT directive of laying down the law first and then scrambling around to initiate second. Some of my colleagues have already been planning -- but I got home last night to nearly 50 emails from panicking colleagues about 'How are we supposed to do this?!' and 'I don't have the internet at home!!!!' and 'I don't want to record my lectures because I'm in the union!' [by comparison, normally when I leave my office around 4pm, and arrive home at 5pm, I might have one or two emails].
You just have to add audio to your powerpoints and set up discussion in Canvas, you nitwits, not direct a West End musical.
The students are all in a panic because their assessments and teaching got so fucked up with the four weeks' strike disruption.
The most egregious thing about this whole annoucement was the VC's email: purple comic sans. Christ. Oh, and if we're teaching online/remote learning, we're expected to be available to student emails 24/7. No. I plan to treat online teaching the same way I would if I were physically on campus: set times for lecture/discussion through Canvas, tutorial through discussion options, and answering email the same way I do now: twice a day at set times, between 8 and 5pm M-F.
I still have to go in on Wednesday and Thursday, as classes are still meant to be held, but I expect more and more students to bail out as the week goes on.
