Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The wonders of technology
Considering that I grew up without a computer and did not start playing with them until I was well into my teens, I imagine myself to be somewhat proficient at this thing we call technology. I can usually find my way around a program without much help, I know what an L2 cache is, and I can troubleshoot a no-POST if I really have to.
So I have had access to Blackboard (then-webCT) for the last few years in college. I understand the general purpose and the potential for integrating the coursework to make everything highly accessible from wherever the student may be - I think it's a great idea! However, exactly one of my professors has ever used it, and that was 3 years ago. I think I've just got this picture in my head of the hopelessly confused teacher trying to find the "play" button on the VCR and pretty well every instructor ever since has fallen into that category.
So I have had access to Blackboard (then-webCT) for the last few years in college. I understand the general purpose and the potential for integrating the coursework to make everything highly accessible from wherever the student may be - I think it's a great idea! However, exactly one of my professors has ever used it, and that was 3 years ago. I think I've just got this picture in my head of the hopelessly confused teacher trying to find the "play" button on the VCR and pretty well every instructor ever since has fallen into that category.
Picture my surprise when every one of my classes this year is ALL OVER Blackboard. I'm getting e-mails, updates, and additional course content every 30 minutes. I didn't realize this until during all of my classes today, when I hadn't done the required readings and didn't print a copy of the slides to bring to the lecture. Oops! The best part was I asked a girl in the class where she got her notes from and she gave me an oh, you're slow look and said "Do you know how to use Blackboard?"
It will be interesting to see how this heavy Blackboard usage plays out for me. Over the last 2 days, I have spent probably 2.5 or 3 hours just navigating to, downloading, and printing required lecture material. It takes a lot of time, really. The program is a little clunky so navigation isn't as fast as it could be, and then I have to wait for the full lectures to download, and then convert them into PDFs if they aren't already. Oh, and the printing. Printing at the library costs $0.25 per page... just today, I have 20 pages to print. So I print at home on the 'use as little ink as possible' setting, and I'll try to sneak some in at work tomorrow. Next year I should apply for a grant specifically to cover printing costs... it will definitely add up!
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2 comments:
We loved WebCT then they took it away and gave us Blackboard.
Well least we don't have to do the printing the college does it for us.
Would it be cheaper to buy a printer?
The *really* cheap option would be to take my laptop to school and just work paper-free, but the temptation of the blogosphere (and facebook) would be wayyy too distracting. I think that's probably why I don't remember any of the art history classes I took a couple of years ago...
I've got a printer at home but the ink cartridges are just so expensive! Really, it's cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace the ink. But I'll probably have to suck it up and print at home. This is madness!
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Thanks for your thoughts :)