It's the stressful time of the semester for me teaching death and dying classes to nursing students at my community college.  We have 3 big exams in the course between August and December and starting tomorrow I give mine on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book about the 5 stages of grief.  I've had 2 students who have turned on their computer at live streaming class time for 5 weeks, but won't turn on their computer's camera so I can see them, won't turn on their microphone to respond when called on, and won't type back a response via chat during live streaming class time.

I found out one of them, AJS, was texting another female student named M. in the class during live streaming class today.  I stopped class and got M. to give me his cell phone number he was texting from and called him by phone.  There I got him to speak to me for the first time.  He said he had technical problems with his computer and that was why he didn't show up on camera, answer via microphone,nor type back via chat during live streaming class time. 

I told him to contact our college help desk for computer issues, but he said he didn't know how even though it's simple, like customer service on Amazon for shopping.  Then I told him I have a friend who retired from IBM after 38 years there who is really savvy, and with my friend's permission I gave him my IBM veteran's email address. 

We'll see if he gets help to get a webcam, a computer microphone, and a keyboard so he can show up on video, talk when called on, and type answers back on chat during live streaming class sessions,  This is my first time teaching via live streaming ever with zero training, like it is for teachers around the world in this pandemic.  It helps that most students turn their webcam and mike on fully, and type back when chatted with.  Most even help me when I ask how to share a screen with a diagram or something else I used to show them in my face to face pre-pandemic classes in my physical classroom.

These 2 students not responding, though, has made matters difficult.  I am teaching from home, so I can't walk them to my department secretary's office and leave them in her competent care.  In fact, there are staffers at my college who have gone unresponsive during the pandemic, too, like these students.  One of them happens to be the manager of our help desk.  The staff she supervises haven't seen her since August because she comes in at 2am nightly and leaves before staff gets there in the morning.  Because kidney disease makes me a high coronavirus risk I would understand that if she had a pre-existing condition like mine.  But unlike me, it's not just that she avoids contact with possibly contagious people, unlike me she's unresponsive to emails from students, instructors like me, and her own staff over whom she is manager.  Her department has fallen apart this month, then, which is why I gave AJS my veteran IBM friend's contact info if he didn't contact the college help desk.

The non-functioning of my community college as an institution right now is hard on us, what with services like the computer help desk not working well exactly when we need it most because we live stream now.  I'm just really grateful that DS is working well through this time when people like me need it most because of pandemic stress burdening already long present PTSD stress.  Support welcome as I give this exam to my classes starting tomorrow through Monday.