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green dots small2.gif May 19, 2008

A different method for madness: bulletin boards

Having been trained to blog responses to academic discourse throughout my undergraduate years, I'm finding it difficult to make a transition to "bulletin boards" we're using currently in the summer grad course I'm taking.

The course is three credits packed into three weeks: class is four days a week from 3:30-7 p.m. (By the time we're done, we're all exhausted.) We have to post something Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (but not Thursday because we have to read a whole textbook over the weekend and we have a paper due Monday).

Frustrations:

  • They show threaded posts, but in a tiny window with tiny Courier New.
  • The class is broken into groups of three, so we can only respond to those in our groups. Therefore I do not know what the rest of the class is saying and can't refer to what they wrote since I know only what my group wrote.
  • It feels like I'm disconnected from the posts that I write. My name is attached, but not like it is when I blog.
  • I've had a hard time printing out my posts so that I can look at them in hard copy form and/or take them to class.
  • There's not an "update" feature to let me know if someone else replied to my post or if someone else posted something new. This is frustrating because I'm used to RSS and email notifications.
  • Clearly I'm not thrilled with the ugly set-up, layout, fonts, etc. ;) When I tried to use the HTML editor built in to the system, it deleted what I had written. It was very confusing to switch between the "plain text" and the HTML when I don't think it should have been that hard to insert a hard line break...

    Things that differ, but might not be that bad:

  • The limits imposed by groups helped us get to know each other quickly. (I think.)
  • Our small class size and limited class time is probably more conducive to a no-mess approach with technology (we're using something called WebCT, which we've all been part of before for classes since teachers frequently post materials there for downloading, printing, etc.). While not everyone in the class loves WebCT at least we're using something mostly familiar.
  • The functions are a lot like email.
  • I'm still using the ideas I posted as fodder for papers and discussions. (Ahem, thanks, Dr. Jerz :)

    Posted by KarissaKilgore at May 19, 2008 7:58 AM

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    Comments

    Thanks for this glimpse into how your grad program is using instructional technology.

    Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at May 19, 2008 11:54 AM

    You're welcome! It was fun to think about, actually. I started noticing myself wishing that I could just blog what I wanted to post and send my groupmates links to my blog... but I resisted since I ought to be able to do something entirely different for just three weeks.

    I volunteered to run the seminar on blogging as social action and (lo, and behold!) one of the articles we are assigned to read I actually cited in the paper I did for my independent study and 4Cs in 2007! I was pretty excited about that. :)

    Posted by: Karissa at May 19, 2008 7:39 PM

    That's one of the benefits of studying something in depth -- you start to run into familiar names.

    Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at May 19, 2008 8:56 PM

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