Video Lecture!

 

A consulting firm approached me recently for developing video lectures for a reputed university.  The course for which the lectures were to be developed was one of my favourites.  Having adopted to the online teaching post-pandemic, I told the consulting firm ‘you have come to the right person!’.  The course contents and other specifications were sent to me.  They wanted me to send a sample video before the project was formally assigned.  I started the work with much enthusiasm. 

 

Within no time, challenges started popping up one after the other.  The first challenge was that I did not have the required software.  But, thanks to the benign software developer, who was providing free updates to teachers, I downloaded the latest version.   The second challenge was talking to my laptop.  Online or offline, I always enjoyed interacting with my audience, posing questions, relating their answers to the concepts, and teaching through discussions.  Here, I was talking continuously to my laptop!  I got over this challenge by simultaneously playing the double role of asking the questions and answering them myself.  Finally, my sample video was sent for feedback to the university.  They suggested two things – to increase brightness in the room and to avoid noise disturbance in the background, mainly from the traffic on the road adjacent to my place.

 

I could enhance the brightness in my room by fixing a bright light above my table, but the noise disturbance was a real issue.  My house is just about 100 meters from the busiest road in the city.  All my windows, except in kitchen, open to the road.  I tightly closed all the doors and windows, still the noise of traffic and honking of vehicles got into the video.  By now, I had lost most of my excitement.  Having committed, I had to find a way out.  Finally, I decided to stay late in the night and do the recording after midnight when the traffic becomes very thin.  So, the first day of recording, I settled down in front of my laptop at midnight.  With the new light, there was brightness all around, except on my face, because I was sleepy.  The traffic on the road had almost stopped.  Fifteen minutes into the recording, suddenly there was darkness all around.  The power supply went off and the screen of my laptop became the brightest thing in the room.  After waiting in darkness for a while, I retired to bed.  The optimist in me was heard shouting, ‘power supply doesn’t fail every day’!

 

The next day, I was back in front of my laptop.  The power supply had more voltage on that day, as if it were making up with me for the previous night’s erratic behaviour.  I started the recording.  Suddenly, I saw a spark of dazzling brightness through my window followed by a loud noise.  It did not take long for a heavy downpour with lightning and thunder.  Now, the noise of traffic was replaced by thunder.  Despondent, with no signs of the rain stopping, I closed my laptop and went to bed.  The optimist in me was saying, though in a much lighter voice, ‘it doesn’t rain every day’!

The third day, before starting my work, I looked at the sky.  It was clear, there were no clouds, the stars were bright and no signs of rain.  Traffic had almost stopped.  I was confident that nothing would stop me that day.  I started recording the video.  Halfway through, I was shaken by a noise.  A group of stray dogs had assembled in front of my house.  They were fighting, barking, and howling.  I tried shooing them away, but in vain.  My shooing got subsumed in the noise of their barking.  Shivering with anger, I closed my laptop and went to bed.  There, on my bed, I lie wondering what was happening.  All the excitement of video lecture had disappeared, and now I was cursing myself for agreeing to do this.  Suddenly, I experienced an eerie silence around me.  Where have the dogs gone?  The next question in my mind was, should I get up and get back to my work? Will the dogs reappear as soon as I start my work?  I sharpened my ears to listen to what the optimist in me had to say.  No, I could not hear anything.  He too had gone silent!