Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Gelting Organized and Still Giving Things Up

I use Blackboard. I lose paper, and the paper I want is never where I am. Deciding to go with a student-led section of QU 101 in mid-August left my Blackboard Course in a state of disorganization while I concentrated on getting the Students and myself off to a good start. Last weekend was spent on getting Blackboard back into shape,  Finally, in utter confusion, I asked Molly to look at all my weekly Overviews, combine them into one document, and look for days with too many assignments due. With her help I was able to see areas of unbalanced workload.  The topic of students negotiating due dates hasn't come up yet, but I'm ready to be flexible when it does.

There was also a lot of "good stuff" in Blackboard from last year, Which I mostly deleted.  Letting and encouraging the students to find Sources outside the book is not only Part of the philosophy of this course, but it's good for developing information fluency.  It's also been a relief to give up having to grade everything that I receive.  I still prefer to read whatever my students write.  That's my own curiosity at work and helps me get to know each One better.  

Side note on technology- I'm writing this by hand on the large Galaxy Note. It capitalizes somewhat randomly in handwriting mode, giving an odd Colonial feel to my high-tech, Sans-serif text,  It also likes commas,  Some proofreading is in order next,  Couldn't deal with the gibberish and commas, but left the odd capitalization in.  Back on a keyboard now.

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