“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” —Paulo Coelho

We’re definitely in the ‘all at once’ phase. The number of questions coming in from faculty is increasing. I’m noticing that once I’ve answered a query from an instructor, they seem more inclined to continue asking other questions. I like this and how it helps build / maintain connection. I’m guessing I’m not the only one, missing that right now.

The Help Desk is likely only capturing a portion of the activity going on. While there is obviously a high level of stress this week – normal for any first week of a term, but even more so in the current climate – there’s also an amazing level of commitment to learning by instructors who aren’t teaching until fall, some of whom won’t know until closer to the end of summer, whether or not their course will run.

I’ve enjoyed this week being able to ‘problem solve,’ figuring out what I’ve learnt, what I can deduce and where I still need to broaden my knowledge (definitely Kaltura and WordPress). Equally, I’m seeing some areas where we perhaps need to strengthen our sessions – queries around screen sharing, sending meeting invitations, and adding another moderator to a session using BlueJeans were common queries I received this week.

I’ve also enjoyed facilitating the new sessions, BlueJeans 3 and the session for supporting EAL students. Less presentation and more discussion focused because of the nature of the topics, I felt I learnt as much if not more than I contributed. I have some extremely creative colleagues. I love co-facilitating with Terri and feel like we’ve ‘found our groove,’ and I like BlueJeans for its capacity to provide a forum for creating and containing a community of practice. There is a tangible sense of, “we’re all in this together.”

And we need that because it’s clear from the news this week that we’re in this for the long haul. What we’re doing now, this is the “new normal.”