Going Paperless

“We are going paperless this term,” announced our department Chair during our faculty meeting.

I broke out in cold sweat and hives. I also started biting my nails, a habit I kicked way back in grade school.

For non-techies, who confuse logging out with logging in, especially in new sites or apps, this could be a punishment worse than hanging.

You’re kidding, of course, I replied silently.

“I am not kidding,” he said, when he saw my face and of those who belong to my generation.

The next hour was a seminar/workshop on how to do it, using a proprietary app/tool—the one which will be used by both teacher and students. 

“Now create your own site, with your own design for your class,” the IT said, “by simply doing this.” His cursor on the big screen darted from side to side.

I got lost before I could begin. Would it be better to quit now than to subject myself to humiliation and, uh, disgrace?  

This called to mind Hamlet’s famous soliloquy: “. . . Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them?”

The workshop was torture, so I am trying to self-study at home or wherever I could get hold of a computer. Meanwhile, my other non-computer jobs have to be abandoned in favor of going paperless.

It has been three weeks, and the learning curve is no less steep. I have already uploaded several files to my cyber class, but my students couldn’t find them. Where could they be?

Yet, as I often challenge my classes, “If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right.”

Now deep in prayers for terabytes of grace from above, I am trying—frenziedly trying—to do it right.

(To be continued . . . )