If you’re an organizer scrambling to pull together virtual bowl training materials, take a deep breath, strike your favorite yoga pose, and click here. Michigan HSEB organizer Jeanine DeLay and her team at A2Ethics offer a relaxing, reassuring judge training video sure to chillax volunteers and participants worldwide.
If you’re an organizer, Jeannine can empathize with the worries that keep you up at night, likening bowl coordination to “mosquito control at a nudist camp.” Luckily we learn from one another’s mistakes and build on one another’s successes. Past problems have inspired redundant point-tallying officials, recruiting, courting and training more volunteers than needed, and in Michigan this year implementation of a new alternate judging system.
While only three judges’ score sheets will be counted, four judges will log into Zoom to view and score each match. Why? If one of the official judges’ computers decides bowl time is the perfect time for a forced reboot, the alternate judge will be promoted, their scores included in the totals. Tada! Simple, seamless, effective.
One note: the scoring interface featured in the video is unique to the Michigan Bowl. I’ve tested it and it works great – suspect creator Wayne Eaker of Zengenuity, Inc would be willing to discuss how to do something similar at your bowl if interested. Thanks for your devotion and leadership, Jeanine and team! The best of luck with your upcoming V-Bowl.
Have your own virtual bowl disaster avoidance ideas? New virtual bowling materials others might benefit from? Share in a comment or shoot me an email and we’ll get the word out in an article – collaboration and cooperation are what ethics bowl is all about.
Thanks, Matt. I passed this resource on to Alex Sager, chief organizer of the the Oregon HS/MS Ethics Bowl this year. I’m sure that he’ll find it helpful.
We had an involved coach/participant/organizer Zoom info session last night, and we explored some possible format changes, such as: reducing the overall case load to ease preparation stress; splitting the bowl into a multi-day (rather than one-day) affair; whether to include an unseen-case round; and whether to substitute an “Open Dialogue” segment in place of the “Response to the Commentary”–like the Washington Bowl has done (details here:
https://www.philosophyforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ethics-Bowl-general-information-2020-2021.pdf).
They decided in the end only to omit two of the 12 cases chosen earlier (for a total of 10), but the question of splitting the Oregon Virtual EB into a two-day rather than one-day competition is still being decided.
Organizers have a lot of logistical hurdles this year. My sympathies go out to all of them in every state.
Cheers. –Michael
Thanks so much, Michael. Other bowls have implemented some of the measures Oregon apparently considered. I believe the Long Island HSEB has narrowed the case pool to 10 for the past several years. And I know the Michigan HSEB has split theirs across at least two days this year.
I’ll touch base with Alex, but Jeanine DeLay with A2Ethics would be the organizer to discuss dividing a virtual bowl across multiple days. She runs a tight ship there in Ann Arbor.
Matt