Compared to the 2020 April lockdown, I’ve found it more difficult to get rolling with the online learning. I think that I’m in the rhythm now, it just took a bit more effort than I was expecting, like rotational inertia.

Context: rotational inertia is a measurement of how difficult it is to either begin an object rotating or to change its rate of rotation. Factors which can affect an object’s rotational inertia are the object’s mass (larger mass means its harder to change its rotation), and the distribution of the mass (if the mass is concentrated at the centre of the object it will be easier to change its rotation than if it is mostly on the outside of the object),

Factor one: the mass of the object.

This year I have the same amount of classes as I did last year. Although I don’t have a double-up of a class this year like I did last year, one class is doing the same topic that we did in 2020’s lockdown so the number of videos I’m making each week works out to be the same as 2020. I did have to take quite a bit of marking home with me this time, so the overall amount of work is greater this time.

Increased mass means increased inertia.

Factor two: the distribution of mass

In March 2020 we had seen how other countries were undergoing lockdowns and there were murmurs and whisper in many different communities that we should be doing the same. The number of cases had been rising but it wasn’t until there were over 100 cases (102 to be exact) that Level 3 was declared with two days grace until we went to level 4. Our Prime Minister told us that it would be for four weeks with the possibility of the time being extended if needed. This time, since it was suspected to be the Delta variant (it was), as soon as the first case was announced we were told that Level 4 would be implemented from midnight that night with a review of the levels in three days on Friday the 20th of August. The likelihood of there being more Delta in the community was high and so uncertainty was spreading. Where did it come from? (Bloody NSW in Aussie, thanks ScoMo!) Was it just in Auckland or had it spread to other regions? How many people were asymptomatic spreaders? and so on and so forth.

My school decided to stick to the normal timetable for the first three days. While that meant that I only had to find enough work for one day at a time it also meant that I had much less flexibility in my time to prepare the videos for my classes (yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t have to make videos). On Friday at 4pm it was announced that the lockdown would be extended for a week and so the school switched over to the lockdown timetable and gave us a teacher-only-day on Monday to have department meetings and prepare our resources for the week.

A bit of clarity on timeframes and structure, good!

I used the weekend to make videos for the classes I was certain about what I would be teaching. On Monday the online meetings provided more clarity and I was able to finish making the videos I needed to so that all the week’s work was ready to go.

I was feeling drained, and then Tuesday brought a whole lot of admin; students were checking in, I had to finish marking a class’s paper so they could review it, I had to input grades online for multiple assessments, I had meetings and emails and my partner’s book to edit, you get the picture. Luckily from Wednesday I was able to regain that flexibility and as a result I do not have to do any preparation this weekend except for our fortnightly Tabletop RPG session.

Workload spread over the weekend and across a greater number of tasks meant I felt high inertia. When I was able to consolidate my workload it decreased my inertia.

Conclusion

I feel like I am rolling along smoothly now. The initial inertia I felt that prevented me from getting into the swing of things has lessened. Level 4 will be lowered to Level 3 from next Wednesday for all of the country south of Auckland. At Level 3 schools will be open for students under the age of 14 who are the children of essential workers and we wait to hear what Level 2 under Delta will look like. It seems likely that Auckland will remain at Level 4 for another week, possibly more, but we will get an indication of how long the levels will stay as they are on Tuesday the 31st of August. Personally I am hoping that we will stay in Level 3 for another two weeks and that we will be at Level 2 from mid-September as it was around the five week mark of the 2020 Lockdown that I started getting antsy.