So, for this fall, for the Gen Ed class I teach, it has been decided we do online homework for each chapter rather than quizzes.
(NB: I liked the quizzes. Doing quizzes worked for me. But this is life on a committee: your say is only one say.)
So we have to link these homeworks FROM a textbook publisher (they shall remain anonymous here, I'll call them Cartoon Western Horse Publishers) to our BlackBoard page
Okay, fine. I use BlackBoard, have used it for 12 years. (I know this because one part of my login for it is the year I first used it). Have weathered through the changes, the additions of bells and whistles that broke other things, the typical sludging-up of webpages as people learn how to make more and more "apps" and such.
(Side note: we can now award "digital badges" in our classes, for example for completion of assignments and stuff. The person who runs Bb for my campus kind of rolled her eyes a little and said, "It's 'gamification,' but some people like it and they like sharing them on their Facebook pages." Indeed.
I will admit some time later, sitting in one of the talks, the phrase, "Badges? We don' need no stinkin' BADGES" popped into my head and I laughed a little. I....don't know that I'll be using them. I can see some of my students feeling they were childish; I think I would)
Anyway. Cartoon Western Horse Publishing, their website is a mess. I can't find anything because nothing is in a logical place. I'm sure it's because they've tricked it out so fully that the basic functionality is lessened - this seems to be a rule with both software and webpages - the first issues are smooth and simple and work well, and then they start adding stuff, stuff that about 80% of the end-users will never use, and it sludges things up and makes things slow.
My biggest issue at the moment is getting "chapter art" - these are copies of the drawings and photos in the chapter, that you can use in a PowerPoint (I know, I know: but the students expect you to use PowerPoint and it DOES make life easier). Time was when, the publisher sent you a CD-ROM of the files, and you could grab the images as needed and pop them in your lecture. Now you have to go to the webpage. And you need a log-in. And woe unto you if you forget your password. And then you have to click on one of the sections of your class. Then go to the "library." Then click on "presentations." Then find the format you want. Then download it. Then unzip it. And then, finally, you have access.
And with making the homework: I made the first one and wanted to have it ready to "drop" on the first day of class so I could show the students "This is where you need to go to get the homework and if you don't go to the class' BlackBoard page you won't be able to get it." But the "training" I had was a fast 45 minutes over the phone in JUNE, and all I have is my scribbled page of notes and not-very-clear memories of the process (I boast of having a good memory but if too much stuff is going on at a time, I don't remember things - just like, when I clean my office, I lose stuff, because I've had too many "last places" where I put something).
I got the homeworks made - I thought - and linked them to my pages - I thought. But they didn't show up as a column in the gradebook. So I had to go get my younger colleague who teaches online more and get her to help me. She actually had to do that IT person bit of "MOVE" and make me get out of my chair so she could show me how to fix things. It was kind of humiliating. Yeah, I'm a dinosaur. But you know? I'd rather teach a more old-fashioned way. I'd rather have actual assignments on paper rather than online. I'd really even rather chalk-and-talk, or maybe, chalk and talk with a few PowerPoint slides of graphs and photos (or better: a document camera that projects).
What irks me is that all of this allegedly labor-saving stuff seems to take me three times as long as doing it the old way.
Thirteen years until I can retire with a state pension....thirteen years.
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