Or is it the DaVinci Code?
Yesterday I used the metaphor of Brigadoon to explain my feelings when I finally accessed Moodle, the site at Concordia where students can find their homework question posted and can ‘upload’ a file containing their answers to that question. The trouble was, I had yet to answer those questions, so I had nothing to upload yet. So I had to leave Moodle, hoping that I could find it again once I’d done the work.
Today, after hours of re-reading the play, completing the homework, putting it into a file, etcetera, I tried again to find Moodle. I couldn’t get my current password to work. I kept being told it was invalid. This has happened before. In fact, I’ve been given three new passwords over the last three weeks because my current one was deemed ‘involid’. It was so frustrating!
I kept carefully typing in my password, saying the letter aloud as I did so to ensure it was correct. But of course, all one sees are dots as one types, so there’s no way of knowing if you are somehow doing it incorrectly. (And by the way, what’s with the dots, anyway? It’s not as if I’m a spy and some nefarious enemy agent is reading over my shoulder. Why not show the letters I’m typing?
Finally, discouraged, I phoned the tech assistance line at Concordia, and was talked through the whole procedure by a very nice woman. It seems that I have to click ‘Preferences’ under my ‘Edit’, wherein I get a site that allows me to empty the ‘cache’ of my computer’s memory, which probably contained my previous passwords in it and was confusing to my computer. In any case, as my old iMac struggled through every stage of this procedure, and I again typed in my password, then got through the ‘Portal’ at Myconcordia, then found Moodle, then clicked on Homework Notes for today, then uploaded my file and sent it, I felt like someone in The DaVinci Code going through a long and coded procedure to get into a secret room, or to obtain some hidden casket that contains the Secret of the Universe.
I know, I know. It was only handing in my homework. But I’m a tyro when it comes to all this, and I really was happy when it all worked for a change. Will it happen next time I try? I can only hope so.
