I was still traveling 30-50% of the time when I started this newsletter, so I'd imagined there would be a lot of stories of people I'd met or universities I'd visited. Then COVID-19 happened. Yesterday I left Vancouver city limits for the first time in about two months. We took the dog for a walk at Iona Beach in Richmond, just across the Fraser River.
On the other hand, sitting still makes it easier to coordinate the international calls. My team now has people in Norway, Scotland, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and several places in the US. It would be awhile before we all got together in the same place even if we weren't under quarantine.
Easing Back
I am straight-up blessed to live in British Columbia.
For the most part everyone here has been remarkably sensible about reducing contact and avoiding virus spread. The main guidance from our now-beloved provincial health officer has been "good work, keep it up, and don't do anything stupid."
We're starting to let ourselves dream of a reduced-capacity night at our favorite pub. Haircuts. (I can trim my beard, but my hair currently looks like a cross between a Beatles mop-top and Jimmy Hoffa.)
My wife is going back to her office three days a week starting after Victoria Day. I am not - Microsoft is still encouraging everyone to stay home, especially those like me who mostly work remote under normal circumstances. I think the first to head back will be the engineers with small kids at home.
Like a lot of modern tech places Microsoft Vancouver's office was designed with an open plan, modular feel, with large desks side by side with each other to conserve space. That won't work in a post-COVID, pre-vaccine world. We've already been warned the workspace isn't going to look or feel like it did in January. I'm imagining desks surrounded by plastic shields like the ones that everyone has installed in grocery stores.
(The open-plan offices have been controversial for a while. Engineers under 40 seem to like the easy social interaction. Engineers 40 and over, especially those who once had private offices, complain constantly. I'll be interested to see the reaction to the new anti-viral model.)
Supporting Parents
I got fascinated by both this tweet from Naomi Klein of Rutgers and its responses.
This got a lot of agreement (and Klein doubled down on it all week) but some responded with the same questions the tweet raised for me: what about kids' safety? What about immunocompromised kids? What about kids who can't participate in class that day, for any reason?
Naomi's tweet read to me like a heartfelt plea and one I sympathize with: please get my kids out of my house. I can't be their substitute teacher and keep my professional career and sanity. I need a school to send them to. I was reminded of Sarah Parcak's now-famous tweet about pulling her son out of first grade because "We cannot cope with this insanity." The New York Times ended up quoting her alongside so many other stories of parents struggling to balance their responsibilities.
One of the things we've heard loud and clear since the pandemic response began is the difficulty parents are having in supporting their kids' education while keeping their own lives straight. In no small part, that’s because none of this was planned. In an organized distance learning scenario, you organize the pedagogy and give the parents what they need to stay sane and support their kids. Nobody had time for any of that in March or April. This has been pure emergency response.
We're hearing from educators at both K12 and higher levels that we're expecting a lot of hybrid or "high-flexibility" learning situations this fall. Teachers may be in their classroom, some students may be there too, but not all. The reasons are legitimate: student safety, or inability to get to the classroom due to movement restrictions, or access. This demands a new pedagogical model, one that uses but does not rely on the traditional classroom tropes, because not everybody might be in the classroom.
At the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative conference a couple weeks ago we heard a lot about institutions driving programs to help instructors rethink and re-imagine their course delivery. The learning objectives don't change, but the need for flexibility does. it's more than saying "OK, we'll record the class and let the student view them later." Even in higher education, sage-on-a-stage lectures have been shown to have worse learning outcomes than active participation or flipped classroom models, for instance. How do students participate if they're not in the classroom? (And the reality is, for some time to come, not all students will be able to join the class.)
The idea of a hybrid model is a transformation, one that will require a great deal of care, patience, and bravery on all sides. Microsoft spends a lot of time thinking about how we can support educators and institutions in that change. What I hear from Klein and Parcak is simple and profound: we need to support students and K-12 parents too. Lots to think about there.
Things I'm Reading
Dan Ayoub (longtime Halo lead, VR and educational games expert, briefly my boss) had a good interview:
If I had a word of caution for ed-tech companies, it would be to not be ambulance chasers and to remember that people are overwhelmed and trying to cope. I believe that the role of ed tech is to service teachers, students, and parents, and while there is opportunity right now, we shouldn’t be opportunistic. Priority one needs to be finding ways to help.
EDUCAUSE released a survey on what university IT folks are expecting in next year's budgets. This is mostly directed at the wonks like me, but this quote resonated with what I'm hearing from a lot of customers:
Many institutions are laying the groundwork for permanent change. As one respondent wrote, "We are thinking this is a 'permanent' exercise (i.e., at least a few years), considering the upcoming recession and uncertainty of the length of the new normal of life." Another explained, "The doors are wide open for change and transformation. We are bending the metal while it's hot."
Github published an analysis of developer work habits in the March COVID-19 lockdown frenzy:
This is likely impacted by those who typically commute to an office “recovering” that time now that they work from home. While this time could be split between home tasks and work activity, developers may be feeling pressure to push more often, and thereby showing this increased work volume in the data due to several factors: economic uncertainty and the desire to do well and stay employed, using work as a distraction to combat boredom when stuck at home, pressure from management to get products to market, or team norms to push frequently to maintain fast and stable software delivery cadences.
Last year's The 1619 Project won a Pulitzer, on merit. It's a lot, a hard read, and necessary for every American. Especially us white guys. I am forever amazed at the American history I didn't get taught in my (mostly-segregated, suburban 1980s) high school.
Inspiration
I shot this photo ages ago on a trip to New York City, not long after I got my first DSLR. I’ve been thinking of New York a lot lately, for all the obvious reasons.
Onward
I’m hearing a lot of stories about tribal Trumpists in the US abusing store staff for wearing masks or taking other COVID-19 precautions. You are not that style of jackass, for which I’m grateful. Your patience and kindness are stronger, and much appreciated. Thank you. Let’s get through the week together.