03

Hello, hello… that was what I said, when I was testing out my built-in microphone on my laptop last week. With physical interaction now limited, especially due to the ongoing controlled movement directive put in place by the Malaysian government, many are resorting to screen-based and cloud-based conferencing alternatives to conduct activities that require discussion and active participation.

Over the years, I’ve watched and grown accustomed to my mum’s professional life as an academic staff – the marking of assignments, re-checking of exam marks, and her prep for classes. Psst psst… I think she’s quite an expert at Microsoft PowerPoint since she always uses it to prepare her lecture slides.  Everything was as per normal…. Until the movement control order was issued.

With physical lectures impossible (at least for the time being), my mother has the option to have her lectures pre-recorded. Now, you may think, ‘’Yay, I can listen to lectures as and when!” But do you know how much work is needed for the voiceover component to work?

• Firstly, you need to have a device, preferably with a built-in microphone.
•  Secondly, you need to figure out how to do voiceovers (with as little distraction as possible).
•  Thirdly, make sure your voice is good, your speaker volume is set to an audible level.

The first few attempts were hilarious, especially because I heard my voice during the playback when I was testing out my microphone for the first time. After a few minutes of watching YouTube video tutorials on how to do voiceovers to coincide with the relevant slides, we got excited.  Then, my mother thought she liked my voice better, she said, “Aiyah, my old lady voice tak boleh pakai la.” But eventually, she got the hang of it.

However, on the second day of recording, my mother wasn’t so lucky. There were neighbours’ children playing and screaming within their compounds. Kids being kids. She had to re-do the recording.

Then, there’s also the whole issue of familiarising with certain platforms, where students can get access to materials, and then submit their views as well as projects and assignments. One of the platforms that my mother now uses is Microsoft Teams. Well, it has some features of Hotmail and the now-defunct Windows Live Messenger and MSN chat. Yet, some of the commands are not as clear-cut as expected.

Here comes everybody’s favourite part – submission of assignments. Initially, I couldn’t quite understand what my mother meant because she wanted to try out Google Docs. Then, I realised she wanted to post the assignment instructions for her students to have a look, especially the new deadline. Since Microsoft Teams already has the template under the ‘Assignments’ tab, we went to play around with it instead. After completing some rather tricky bits, the assignment instructions looked almost ready to be posted for her students to view. But then, my mother hesitated – what if there are changes to be made? Minutes later, we saw it being posted to the ‘Draft’ section somewhere in the ‘Assignments’ tab.

Oh, how about another hurdle? Submitting an oral presentation assignment? Given the circumstances at present, students are allowed to do a video recording of their presentation from wherever they’re based. So my question is where do all these videos go to? Besides, how can users be sure their videos are deleted for good, assuming they click the ‘Delete’ video option?

How about the days when you encounter issues with your connection? “Error connecting… Please try again.” Or “Sorry, something went wrong.” We also have to consider the amount of traffic online at a particular time. I think it affects the connection quality. Can my IT-savvy friends help me out here?

Well, in my mother’s kelam kabutness, she actually jotted down something unrelated to work (while on the phone with someone else yesterday) on her tutorial attendance sheet where students’ names are printed. Once the call ended, I had to say, “OI! This is the attendance sheet la!” We were laughing for at least two minutes, with my mum saying, “Nasib baik I used pencil, can erase.”