I don’t know if this is the *worst* experience I’ve had with technology, but remote learning for high school students comes to mind. We started remote learning with the rule that students needed to have their cameras on in order to be marked present for class. But that quickly devolved as teachers became more desperate to have students show ANY kind of engagement with class. At one point, it was clear that I was talking to 11 different empty rooms on Zoom. All the cameras and mics were off and no one was responding to any of the many docs I had sent out for them to engage with. I believe I marked them all absent for the day. Then, the next time I saw that class in person (we were hybrid by this point), I asked them, “complete honest moment: raise your hand if you leave your Zoom camera off and then leave the room,” and they all raised their hands. I was grateful for their honesty. We had a good conversation after that, in which I pointed out that their teachers do, in fact, know whether or not they’re engaged in class regardless of their camera or microphone status. I reminded them that I just need to see that they’re engaging with the class in some way and that they just need to show me something they’ve learned from the day’s lesson. Things seemed to improve a bit after that, but it was still incredibly difficult to feel like any productivity was happening during remote and hybrid teaching. I guess my takeaway was that it’s best to confront the issue (in person, if possible!) and just have a very honest conversation about the problem. Then you can problem-solve together.