Students Inform NUS Lecturer That He Was Muted For 2 Hours
The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that many university classes are now conducted online, and there are many difficulties that can occur during an online lecture.
Unlike with a physical lecture, however, one can’t really tell if students are paying attention.
Or, as it turns out, the lecturer might even spend 2 hours muted without realising.
Unfortunately for a National University of Singapore (NUS) lecturer, this exact nightmare scenario ended up occurring.
NUS lecturer realises he was muted for 2 hours
On 4 Feb, Singapore Incidents uploaded a video on YouTube depicting the reaction of an NUS lecturer who realised he’d gone 2 hours while muted.
The lecturer, surnamed Wang, is seen ending his lecture at around 8pm.
But the responses the lecturer received as he asked his class for questions didn’t turn out as he expected.
Instead of questions about the lecture he’d just delivered, he was told that he’d been muted since 6.08pm.
This understandably resulted in some level of shock.
Then came the realisation that the lecturer had just spent almost 2 hours talking to no one.
This isn’t dissimilar to a regular lecture, mind, but it hits different when nobody is able to listen.
After questioning his students as to how long exactly he was muted for, a student told him “since the start” — the lecturer’s screen had froze and they couldn’t hear him ever since.
Lecturer accepts his fate
The lecturer’s reaction to this is mood, to be honest.
Kinda like spending several hours on an essay draft only for the PC to hang, rending all that work meaningless.
At that point, the lecturer can only tell the class that he’ll have to redo the lecture again some other time.
Student explains that lecturer was using iPad
Many netizens were left curious as to why the students didn’t inform the lecturer earlier about the technical issue.
Turns out, they apparently tried reaching out to him but he was unresponsive, according to someone who was apparently in that class.
Attempts to unmute themselves and calling him on his mobile number didn’t get the lecturer’s attention, they said.
Several students left the lesson over time, but about 20+ students remained, the comment elaborated.
The lecturer was apparently doing the lecture using an iPad, which might leave ample opportunity for mishaps that go unsolved or unnoticed.
Always be prepared for an emergency
The silver lining is that the lecturer apparently now has his phone beside him for every lecture so that he can be contacted in case of an emergency.
Understandably, one wouldn’t want to have their phone too close to them when they’re busy with a lecture, but given the circumstances, having his phone within reach is the best option.
Online classes definitely have their challenges and what happened to the lecturer could’ve easily happened to anyone.
At least we can take it as a learning lesson and hopefully we can fix such issues quickly if they do arise.
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Featured image adapted from YouTube.
