Hypochondria is not one of my faults, thankfully, but even I have started to become worried about Covid19. I have a number of boltholes in London where I can go to use a computer — it saves me having to cart my laptop around. However, keyboards are pretty filthy at the best of times, as I reported in Keep IT clean! some years ago.
Recently, I decided that I’d wear plastic gloves while using a shared keyboard. Yes, of course I wash my hands after using a publicly-shared keyboard, and use hand gel, but I didn’t want to risk forgetting myself and touching my face while working.
Anyway, I have to say that the first time I wore them, I felt pretty self-conscious and a bit of an idiot, but it was not long before I was extremely thankful that I’d done so. Two things occurred. The first was that the woman to my right started sneezing — into her hand! Then, she carried on using the keyboard. Unbelievably disgusting. I thought about saying something to her, but most of the time these days you just get a barrage of abuse if you do so.
The next thing that happened was that the woman to my right said that she thought wearing gloves on the keyboard was a great idea, and that she was going to do the same.
I think sharing keyboards is quite a hot issue at the best of times, but now it’s even more critical. It seems to me that there are a number of options available to schools, not all of them very practicable unfortunately, especially at short notice. In no particular order, here they are:
Issue staff and pupils with plastic gloves, or ask them to bring their own.
Amend the timetable in order to allow time for pupils and teachers to wash their hands after computer-based lessons.
Implement a Bring Your Own Device policy. I have to say that I think the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s praise for schools that ban mobile phones is not sensible in the current circumstances. If anything, he should be encouraging schools to look at a BYOD policy.
Ban the use of shared computers and other devices until this crisis is over. There are plenty of “unplugged” activities for Computing. Unfortunately, I think it will be a long time before the crisis is over. However, perhaps if using a device in school in your subject is not “mission critical” you could defer the lessons in which a device has to be used, set the relevant activities for homework, or use an unplugged activity instead.
Ask your tech support team (if you have one) to clean all the keyboards at the end of the day, if not after every lesson. This should be going on anyway.
Do what they do in gyms: make a hand gel dispenser and paper towel available in every classroom where computers might be used, and tell people to use it before and after using the keyboards.
Obviously, I’m not an expert in disease prevention, so please don’t take this as medical advice. I’m simply thinking aloud about what you might do if you teach Computing, or have to use devices in your subject. The UK Government’s guidelines are here: Coronavirus latest information and advice.