One teacher said his eight-year-old laptop can’t support remote-learning technology.

Another said she’s been using her Android cellphone to communicate with parents.

In internal group chats between teachers at Hamilton’s public board this week, early-childhood educators have chimed in to express sympathy and informal IT support for their struggling colleagues.

“Oh boy … that’s gotta be frustrating,” said one teacher in response to a teacher who couldn’t download a remote-learning application to her phone.

“People are having major technical issues with everything right now,” said another.

As the boards prepare to bring online learning to thousands of students this week, teachers have scrambled to organize classrooms that function smoothly for both staff and students. Part of the problem, they say, is the lack of technology available to them.

“It’s been kind of nuts, to be honest with you,” said an elementary school teacher tasked with running a virtual classroom for Grade 4 students. The Spec agreed not to name him in order to protect his job security.

“There’s been very little direction on how to lead classes with the equipment we’re given.”

The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) has offered iPads to teachers whose personal equipment cannot support the remote-learning technology needed to run classrooms. But teachers say the devices make it difficult to orchestrate video conferences, toggle between presentation slides and share their screen with students.

“Generally, before the pandemic, teachers got laptops or desktops for their classes. We got iPads as well, but they were supplemental devices for things like taking attendance or sending the occasional email. You’re really limited with what you can do with them, and it’ll be hard to keep this up for a whole semester,” said the Grade 4 teacher.

The school board says the devices are the only technology available. Peter Sovran, the board’s associate director of learning, said there simply aren’t enough laptops available to accommodate teachers leading virtual classrooms.

“The devices we have available to use are, by and large, iPads. So that’s what we’re making available to the teaching staff. If that really doesn’t work, we can think about alternatives,” Sovran told The Spec.

“One might prefer one device over another, but that doesn’t mean we have cupboards of laptops to hand out.”

As the first day of online classes began Wednesday morning, teachers quickly discovered that their video conferencing tools pose a variety of technical hurdles and — in elementary classrooms especially — plenty of opportunities for bloopers.

“I had a couple kids saying inappropriate things in the video chat, but I had no way to boot them off,” said the Grade 4 teacher.

“And the kids have the ability to put the teacher’s microphone on mute; Happened at least once today.”

The technical difficulties are to be expected given the scramble to open the board’s virtual education program, which was first announced to families within the HWDSB about a month ago, said Sovran.

“There are definite challenges when opening a brand new program with 8,600 students, especially under these circumstances. But given that, I think everybody should be proud of what we’ve accomplished. We’re just looking forward to getting everybody else into their classes,” Sovran said.

Jacob Lorinc’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about education.