Tech for Adjuncts: Four Commandments for Getting By

“Do not covet” sounds just fine when you’re sitting in a school-provided office with school-provided equipment. But when you’re a nomadic adjunct, it’s altogether different.

Winging It

It’s becoming evident that adjuncts are quickly being stretched to their breaking point. Some are even calling for schools to stop hiring adjuncts until things are sorted out and adjuncts are treated better. But even setting aside the obvious pay and benefits gap, there are other important arenas where adjuncts find themselves at a disadvantage.

While full time faculty have access to equipment and training, many adjuncts must just wing it with what they already have. (At the school where I teach as an adjunct, I’m allowed to have a laptop like all the other faculty, but I only get the laptop during semesters when I teach. I don’t want to risk investing time in setting up and using a computer, only to have to turn it back in after a few months.)

My Four Biggies

But I’m fully committed to a responsible and robust use of technology for my teaching. So what am I to do? Well, I’ve found ways to manage, and I’d like to share a few with you.

1) Have ALL the adapters.

You never know what room you’re going to walk into and have to teach. You never know what connections might already be in place. If you have a laptop with a standard VGA connection, you’ll probably be fine, but it doesn’t hurt to carry around a spare VGA cable in case there isn’t one in the room. If you have an Apple device, then definitely keep some adapters – especially the Thunderbolt to VGA adapters, which Apple oddly calls “dongles.”

2) Downsize what you carry around.

We’ve already admitted that adjuncts are strapped for cash, so suggesting the purchase of a tablet – like an iPad – may seem odd at this point. But I love just carrying around an iPad to give my class presentations. Make sure you have the proper adapters (30 pin to VGA for most older iPads, Lightning to VGA for the newer ones), and you’re set! I walk into a room, set my iPad on the stand, and I’m set. No carrying around or booting up a laptop.

I’ve found that building presentations on a tablet is tedious, so I build them on my computer ahead of time. But then I sync and then present them on my iPad. When using a program like Keynote, I can even use my iPhone (via Bluetooth) as a remote to present, so I can stand where I want when teaching.

It’s true that laptops keep getting slimmer and lighter. But if you can avoid loading up your laptop every time you head out to teach, you should.

3) Lose the paper.

As an adjunct, you might have access to school printers. But your computer might not interface with them well if it’s not a school computer. And you sure don’t want to be paying to print out papers. So here’s my advice to all faculty, but especially adjuncts: Go paperless as much as possible.

Have all writing assignments submitted to you electronically in PDF. Then use a program like iAnnotate to mark them up and return to them students electronically. You’ve wasted no paper, and you haven’t had to mess with printing anything out.

This also keeps you from having to lug stacks of paper back and forth from school to home, where it might get lost or disorganized in the process.

4) Keep up with resources.

Free Technology for Teachers is an excellent website that posts daily ideas for teachers. Use this as a starting point to find resources relevant to your discipline and teaching style.

Also remember that many companies offer educational discounts for their products. Prezi, for instance, offers a special price for faculty members (including adjuncts). Adobe offers educational discounts too.

I’ve also found free workarounds to mimic paid services. For instance, there are many pieces of software that allow for polling and/or in-class feedback from students. I’ve found that setting up a blank Google spreadsheet, giving the link to all students in class, and then allowing them to answer questions or provide feedback in real time has been really helpful. And it’s free.

You’ll have to get creative, but it’s better than going broke.

Photo Credit: “Apple Mini DisplayPort adapter FAIL” by David Joyce— CC by 2.0

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