Back to online teaching

Mexico’s education sector had one of the longest lockdowns due to COVID: As everybody, we “went virtual” in March 2020, and it was only by late February 2022 that I went back to teach presentially at the University.

But for the semester starting next Tuesday, I’m going back to a full-online mode. Why? Because me and my family will be travelling to Argentina for six months, starting this October and until next March. When I went to ask for my teaching to be “frozen” for two semesters, the Head of Division told me he was actually looking for teachers wanting to do distance-teaching — With a student population of >380,000 students, and not being able to grow the physical infrastructure, and with such a big city as Mexico City, where a person can take ove 2hr to commute daily… It only makes sense to offer part of the courses online.

To be honest, I’m a bit nervous about this. The past couple of days, I’ve been setting up again the technological parts (i.e. spinning up a Jitsi instance, remembering my usual practices and programs). But… Well, I know that being videoconference-bound, my teaching will lose the dynamism that comes from talking face to face with students. I think I will miss it!

(but at the same time, I’m happy to try this anew: to go virtual, but where students choosing this modality do so by choice rather than because the world forced them to)