Stalling Techniques

            After a long week in the computer lab with Honors Ninth Graders, I know  new and updated technology stalling techniques. It is not as if the entire class is off task at one time, but when you put thirty eight (yes, 38) kids in one room with a computer in front of each, you are going to have off task behavior.  At least no one was taking the “what color is your aura?” quiz that has been making the rounds on FaceBook….

Preferred stalling techniques:

• Check your grades.
• Change the grades that you see on your screen so that you have all “A”s.
• Change the announcements of the school website to suggest that your teacher is having a “going away party” very soon.
• Say “Hey, Dude” in a stoner voice while staring at rainbow colored pot leaves.
• Crawl under the table to eavesdrop on the opposition for the debate you are researching.
• Check your “Bacon” score (4).
• Check Adolph Hitler’s Bacon score (2).
• Check your teacher’s Bacon score.
• Find the very annoying “soothing” music. Turn up the volume.
• Re-arrange the cords on the opposition’s computer while he is in the bathroom.
• Google Earth your house.
• Google Earth a college campus—then check the GPA requirements. Then check your grades. Then ask the teacher what will happen to your grade if you bomb the essay you are writing.
• Lean to far back in your chair.
• Co-ordinate the beep on the computer with five friends so that it bounces around the room.
• Scroll down “ModestWear” swimsuits and laugh. Call over your friends. Laugh some more.
• Play “Six clicks to Jesus” on Wikipedia.
• Watch your seventh grade video on the Romans.