I'm trying to solve a blackboard-to-brightspace dilemma (converting my tools for peer and team assessment, something I've known was a problem for over a year) and a student dilemma (that I can't share, but I am feeling pissed). I'm also trying to (at least) match the number of posts I had last year, which is why I'm writing here more. End of semester looms. We fell back! Yay. I know the company line is to whine about standard time -- but not me. I feel normal again.

On Facebook today, a friend shared a post "Written by the mom of [name deleted by me] one of the Uvalde victims." It didn't pass the sniff test because of this: "Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire? She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.  We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday." I remember it was reported that Thursday of the week of the Tuesday shooting would have been the last day of school. So either the lengthy copied and pasted post is mis-attributed and has nothing to do with Uvalde, or news reports were wrong, and Thursday was not the last day of school. 

I googled, and I was correct; the post was not written by the mom of one of the Uvalde victims. I did not bother to comment on my friend's post, because I perceive her to be a person who would be pissed at the correction. I suspect this Facebook "friend" is in the "fake but true" camp. She'd think the correction means I'm a gun nut, which I am not. She got 23 thank yous and how powerfuls and hearbreakings and someone should send this to congress comments. That was the intent of the original writer, to go viral, even if it meant taking advantage of victims of tragedy. This type of meme is known as "glurge."

It really irritates me that people don't discern fake posts and resist sharing when it is something seductive that agrees with their POV. That is why elected officials want to regulate social media, or at least it gives them justification to stifle dissent and the voice of the common person.

 Added: Snopes link 

I am an early adopter of online teaching and learning and have been experimenting with remote delivery and alternative approaches since the 1990s, so when everyone everywhere "flipped" in March 2020, it wasn't that traumatic for me or for students who were taking my classes. Content ranged from 50-75% web-based before COVID-19. Since then it's 100%. I don't plan to go back to the physical classroom even post-pandemic (assuming that time ever comes ). I'll tell you a secret. My classes are *better* now. Radical redesign has been cathartic for me and students. Converting some classroom activities is challenging trial and error. Every semester since Spring 2020 I've been trying to figure out how to effectively play the game Set in small groups over Zoom. I use it to teach qualitative analysis and it was always a fun day in the classroom but I haven't been satisfied with the online approach. Yesterday I think I figured it out!! It's the plan for Thursday's class so stay tuned.

Forgot to post this a week or so ago.

I went away for a few days, stayed in Samsonville for the long weekend and got back last night. Today is my first face-to-face class for summer session. It's a blended class made up of some on campus sessions, some web conferences, and online modules. It's graduate, and I expect enrollment of 11 students.

Otherwise today is not a very good day for me. Another contrast from my last post (a week ago). Enough said.

I read a very long entry of Mark Twain's concerning Bret Harte. He's on a tear, trashing those he did not like. Maybe I will post some of it when I have a chance.

On March 13, several students from both classes emailed me in the morning, worried over road conditions. Although classes weren’t delayed or cancelled, the cold, icy & snowy conditions (and that St. Patrick’s Day break was looming) persuaded me that this was a perfect opportunity to use Collaborate.

In the afternoon class, what was on the agenda was handing out and explaining an assignment to prepare for a classroom activity on March 27, and small group meetings, where students work on presentations they will give on April 22. 10 (of 22) students logged on at 1:15, one appeared late in the class, and another emailed me later to say she'd tried to log on, but was unsuccessful. I did not hear from the other ten students. I used audio to explain expectations, and powerpoint to share the assignment (which is in PDF on blackboard as well). This took 15 minutes. Only one student used the mic while in the main room, the others used text chat. A couple added emoticons etc. to my powerpoint on the whiteboard.

I then sent them to breakout rooms. There are 5 groups in this class. Group 3 had full attendance (4 members), Groups 1, 4 and 5 had 2 members each (out of 4 or 5 members). Group 2 had no members present, except for the student who came very late. The group with full attendance had a lively conversation (with audio, video, white board) and they stayed until 2:30, when class is always over. One of the other groups, with two members, also stayed until 2:30. The remaining two groups stayed for a while, then exited.

For the 4:15 class, the syllabus has a one hour video, a half hour lecture, small group and all class discussion (it’s a 3 hour class). 10 students (of 26) logged on at 4:15 (several were there at 4, right after I finished setting up). One more came late. Two more emailed later to say they tried, but were not able to log on.

I knew I couldn’t show the video, but I asked them to watch it before next class (3/27). I still gave my ½ hour lecture and showed my powerpoint. The midterm was due last night, and after my remarks, a few students asked me questions about that assignment, using both audio and text chat. There are also 5 groups in this class. Every group was represented (one by one member, two by three members, two by two members) but I just divided them into two groups of five (the 11th student came too late) and had them develop discussion questions. When they came back to the main room, each group wrote their discussion question on the white board, and we had a discussion using audio and text chat.

One group developed a question about the delivery method, web conferencing and collaborate, one developed a question about last night’s material. It was outstanding! Very reflective and enriched. Class ended at about 6:30 and I think would have been willing to go until 7 (but my dogs were getting antsy and so was I).

In both classes, students here & there would suddenly vanish, then reappear, always reporting technical issues. One student in the 1:15 class was in the library, and sound had been disabled, so he could not hear my remarks, but he did use text chat when in the breakout room. I emailed the 4:15 students to warn them about the library computers, but after class received emails from two students using library computers that have sound enabled who could not log on. (No matter how many times I remind students to test things and contact the help desk, they invariably email me when it is too late.)

One student in the 4:15 class commented that his roommate was sitting on the bed, marveling at him participating in class, wishing he had this opportunity.

Attendance in both classes was much less than it would have been on campus, but there is always a lot of absence the Thursday before a break. I recorded both sessions and put the links in blackboard.

All in all, both classes were fairly successful. The design of the 4:15 class was probably more suited to this delivery, mostly because it is hard to make progress on the presentation assignment without at least 75% of the members. But I couldn’t just switch the agenda, as I had promised them this time for the project, and at least one of the groups was able to use it effectively.

I learned from the 4:15 class that it is quite possible to have a good all-class discussion this way. In fact, there may be fewer distractions than in the classroom, and as a result it was quite in-depth. There was no social pressure from the slackers for the speaker to “shut up.” Of course, these are self-selected groups of 10 – it is possible they are the strong students & if the others were shed from the roster the class would improve dramatically no matter how it is delivered.

I'm sort of annoyed about my textbook this semester. The issues I have with the Create book have not been successfully resolved, despite the best efforts (or maybe that should be double talk) of the rep. In fact, I'm considering throwing in the towel, and going back to two books. A Sage representative has been "after" me, and I just might go with them for my second book.

Today was the last straw. I want a desk copy of the Create book that I can see on a tablet or smartphone. I want to see what students are buying, and I want to be able to read it on a device. I've asked several times and thus far have been unable to pry this from the publisher. So I installed Calibre and tried to convert the PDF proof into Kindle format. Guess what? The file is locked by DRM. Of course it is!

Collaborate in the classroom still eludes me this semester. I tried the camera at home, and got the same error message in Collaborate as on campus. So I tried it with other apps, and it worked fine.


I tried google, and discovered these two links:

http://support.blackboardcollaborate.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=8336&task=knowledge&questionID=2565

http://discussions.blackboard.com/forums/t/54633.aspx

I haven't been able to get the work around solution to work at home yet, as I don't get an update driver choice in device manager. I will stop trying to figure it out at home at this point, as I have spent too much time on this already and my regular lower-end webcam works just fine. That's what I use at home anyway.

I'm not sure why the widescreen worked fine over the summer in my class, maybe something to do with XP? Or the driver in the room? I still want to use the widescreen on presentation days (all mid-November) on campus. I doubt I will have time to install/test the work around in the classrooms in the 10 minutes between classes (or the machines will let me).

The response I received so far? "Use your home camera instead of the widescreen."

In the online class, the situation is brighter. Collaborate is perfect for the initial real-time group chats. And yesterday I canceled my evening class and recorded my lecture and slideshow using Collaborate at home for students to watch instead. Worked great!

I am up to my eyeballs in evaluation, and the calculation of whether I'll make the deadline (or more likely, with how much time to spare) has started. I managed to get my blended learning class all ready, since it went live yesterday. It makes the deadline question above more difficult.

One inspiration I had was to create a "Sound Off" journal in the class. I named it after the wonderful anonymous call-in forum in the Troy Record, but the in-course variety will not be anonymous. It is a space for me to reflect on the class delivery. Does technology enhance learning or does it get in the way? I've invited students to join me. I will probably post my entries here as well.

This is my first:

During this past academic year, 2012-13, I served on the Online Teaching & Learning Task Force. Since I am an adjunct faculty member, I am not required to perform university service, but the topic interests me a great deal, and I did not want to refuse the invitation from the Provost and CIO.

I am not a big fan of meetings, conferences or task forces. My attitude has been that “I was so done with” spending my time that way when I left SUNY System Administration in 1998. I said arrivederci to keynote speeches accompanied by spring mix salad with mandarin oranges, vinaigrette dressing and chicken a la Marriott.

So I was a touch skeptical when asked to be a member of the OTL Task Force. We were given a short time frame; our first meeting was in November 2012, and after several interim deadlines, the final report was due in April 2013.

I think about educational technology a lot already, and have for a long time. I was an early adopter; I started teaching online in 2000, after taking two experimental classes that relied heavily on new delivery methods as a doctoral student in the mid-1990s. But the OTL Task Force caused me to think about it 24/7, and to discuss it extensively with members of the task force, other faculty, and students.

The response rate to the student survey was 12 percent; this was not as high as we had hoped, but it still is a lot of students, and the comments in particular are a rich data source. Surprisingly, 80 percent of students reported needing no technical support for their fully online, blended and web-enhanced courses. (This contrasts with the wishes of the faculty, who report needing help desk availability on weekends and during the evening.)

Access to grades is something all students want. Undergraduate students want lecture capture, and graduate students want access to the Blackboard site for a class after the semester is over.

The OTL Task Force was a good experience for me. I gained some inspiration and insight that I hope will benefit this class. Of course I’ve already encountered one or two roadblocks (chiefly involving the logistics of recording and uploading video captured during the face-to-face classes).

Waiting for Bob to pick me up on campus so we can go to Cafe Capriccio. (Heavenly.) Scholarly writing may be sub-par this semester, but classroom discussion is very lively. Something I have tried is asking them to do "free writes" on various prompts. I time them for two or five minutes. I ask them to share with class afterwards, and have been surprised by the number of students who volunteer. It works really well!

I am going to try online grocery shopping. Shop Rite has it, and my hair stylist (and friend) raved about it last night. He said he has ordered twice and it was flawless; he says he may never go to the store again. I'm psyched!! Stay tuned.

"Ignorance is bliss" and "the unexamined life is not worth living;" was Thomas Gray or Socrates closer to the truth? I often ask students to reflect on and discuss quotes and the one from Socrates generally is favored more by them. I don't think Gray meant this exactly -- but I do wonder if being shallow or self-reflective leads to greater happiness. Not that I think "deep" people are necessarily less satisfied than others; the ignorant have their share of disappointments too.

I was thinking about this the other day (ironically as I was performing the rote task of cleaning the cat box). It isn't the only time I've turned the dilemma over in my mind, and this time it wasn't just to amuse myself while doing something unpleasant (though that would have been a good enough reason) but because I am engaged in a difficult and rewarding project -- creating a new syllabus for a class I am going to teach for the first time this summer.

I am going to attempt a blended learning class again, after what I consider to be a disaster with that type of delivery (in 2008). This time the class will be graduate, and I am going to use a combination of face-to-face on campus, web conferencing, and online.

To that end, I am likely going to buy a new laptop. I don't have a camera for video recording, and although I know I could get by with audio and text web conferencing, I want the option of video. It will also allow me to take the current laptop to Samsonville, because the desktop there is minimal (can risk a decent wired machine there with the chance of lightening strikes) and I hate packing up the laptop to schlep it back and forth.

I've also created a reader for the class, sort of like a course pack of journal articles, but instead of photocopies, this is a real book that will also be available as an e-book. I am so happy with the experiment that I will do the same with foundations and toleration in the future.

So aside from grading "papers" from this semester, this is what has been occupying me. I've had a productive break, and in spite of my prediction otherwise, feel pleased by my progress. The on campus meeting yesterday was interesting (for a task force about online teaching and learning that I am on), and I feel in fairly good shape for this semester. More "papers" to go, but I'll get there.

In other news, we got tickets for BNL at Tanglewood in July. (Really good tickets, in fact!) And, I am successfully managing to (re-)read The Winter of Our Discontent a little at a time, without letting it take over my life and crowd out all else. This is the third book I've been able to read this way, and I'm pleased.

I bought a recumbent bike, which will be delivered this week. (One more effort to combat my aversion to formal exercise.) Spring (not that it feels like it) and summer invitations are starting to arrive. Will have to be careful about not getting too booked up. Things are good!

A difficult week, although not especially in terms of teaching. My classes seem to be very good. Toleration might have more heated debates than usual, although maybe that will not be true eventually. Tuesday evening Foundations is small and high quality, almost makes up for the classroom being in the next town (not really, but the earth science building when it's ten degrees sure seems like it). That it is dark and the nearby area mostly unlit (with the excuse of the green initiative, I suppose) doesn't help matters.

I have students develop questions to ask class, and we start discussions with those. It works well. In all three on campus classes, the questions stimulated so much dialogue that we only got to address two (of four, five, or six, respectively) questions!

Feedback from the online class (also more than usual) included that static in the audios is a barrier. So, I got a new mike. I also got editing software, but I don't think I will need it very often, since the new microphone works well.

Today I noticed an article making the rounds on facebook that asks to be de-friended on fb and un-followed on twitter by any friend or follower who plans to vote for Romney.  The demand was accompanied by a passionate argument for why the writer wants this.

The item didn't cause me to do anything, aside from reading the "liked" blog post. I (practically) never mix it up with anyone on fb. I have, on occasion, hidden individual posts so I didn't have to see them again (pictures of hunting "takes" [yes, euphemism] come to mind); I've also hidden all game reports of the farmville variety, and all except important items from friends who post endless strings of jpeg cliches or only write rants that are offensive to me in some way.

But I've never considered demanding that someone de-friend me. It is so passive-aggressive. Why would the writer expect someone to take this action and reveal information that we have to right to keep private? And if the target audience is not keeping their political preferences secret, but instead posting items the writer finds offensive, why don't they do the de-friending, if they want to take a more extreme step than simply hiding objectionable material? I don't get it.

Due to my interest in toleration, I am always surprised when I encounter viewpoints that are absent respect for pluralism. I also wonder, is the "liker" also asking to be de-friended? Or is it just a thoughtless like, as mine are on a cute cat picture or new seasonal menu announcement from a favorite restaurant?

I'd never mix it up on fb, as I mentioned, but it is oh-so-tempting to do a de-friending, but not to signify voting intentions, including whether I plan to vote at all or write in Mickey Mouse, all of which are my business and no-one else's unless I feel like sharing. I am tempted to take such action just to add to the writer's palpable angst. Or maybe a better strategy would be to one-up the egotistical outrage and demand de-friending if the reader intends to remodeled an outdated kitchen or buy a new sofa or fly in an airplane for vacation, because those acts are wasting resources and conflict with my 100% pure and true anti-materialist value system.

Today I continued my quest to re-take the yard from invasives -- this time it was Virginia Creeper that was growing on our fence. There is usually a little poison ivy that grows in one spot but I didn't encounter any. It wasn't a great day for yard work, though, so after cutting down the vine I worked on my class. I also worked on the genealogy and immigrant roots virtual museum pages of my Gully Brook Press website. Which reminds me, tomorrow I am going to follow up with Verizon. Have to prepare myself to go berserk on the phone!

My two classes each ended with class discussion. We talked about educational technology in one, and about class debriefing (mostly) in the other. The reaction of students to e-books is mixed. Even those who like kindles for other types of reading are not wild about electronic textbooks. Also, the "look" and reading experience of paper is satisfied on Kindles specifically and only -- not so much on other devices. I think this is one area of handhelds where apple is not the leader. A couple like the money savings or convenience of not having to carry around as much stuff, but most prefer a paper version. I wonder when, or if, that will ever change? They want to highlight with a pen. They think it is easier to flip to a page than move around electronically.

As usual, on campus students are skeptical about online learning. Several have taken an online class and most reported it was not a good experience. They felt it was more work, and the instructors did not interact with them enough. I shared with them the debate about digital badges rather than college credits and degrees.

The debriefing had it moments -- I added the article from the ASP and connected it to cultural insensitivity a la Heslep and Wagner. Most felt it was inappropriate stereotyping, a few felt everyone should lighten up. Then one student, who is an officer in the complaining organization spoke up. I am not sure whether she was upset by the dialogue -- but it wasn't very inflammatory and she is more than capable of defending herself. There are always surprises in the classroom, even on the last day of class. (For students and for me; I scrambled the groups by handing out paper slips of differing colors -- one more exercise in toleration.)

Facebook is freaking me out. First, some "friends" post stuff they shouldn't. TMI. And, people post political pieces. (I was going to end with "rants" instead, blame irresistible alliteration.) Shut up! I recently tagged one friend's emails as spam for this reason, so now they will go straight to the trash. Years ago, I tried asking to not receive that sort of thing, and the sender was offended! So spam it is.

In recent semesters, I have been asked to write letters of recommendation for a few students who are different than the normal reference seeker. Usually, students who ask me have taken more than one class with me, and achieved A or A- in them. They have GPA >= 3.0. Within that general parameter, they fall into two camps; 1) perfectly fine student who didn't stand out in any way so that I don't feel I know them that well, and 2) perfectly fine student who is memorable in some way - extra hard working, extra charismatic, extra good writer, extra clever ideas, etc. I have a positive, sort-of form-ish memo that I use in the first instance, and I write something special for the second.

But recently, for the first time I have been asked by students who have taken one class with me and got B or B+. This is one of their highest grades, and their GPA < 3.0...way less than 3.0, in fact. Are you kidding me?

So, I'm honest and tell them that they are unlikely to get into graduate school immediately after graduation with those grades, that low GPA is the most common reason for being denied admission. That my class and my recommendation are not strong enough to stand alone. That it is not a life sentence without parole -- they should get experience, take nondegree classes, grow up, and apply down the road. I think I am saving them time, money, and disappointment, but still they want my reference and to take the risk. OK, but what do they think the letter will say?

Caught up on all else, so I am working on research this afternoon. It's a task I'm finding difficult because I receive no feedback. I have to find a way to overcome that obstacle.

I spent a very long day getting my winter session class ready. I still have a couple more hours of work left. I plan to finish it either tomorrow afternoon or Monday morning. The class doesn't officially start until December 19, but it goes live on the 5th.

It's an odd combination of technical tasks involving the courseware (blackboard), scheduling, intense brainstorming on how to achieve the same learning outcomes as in the academic year and summer, and finally translating that all into assignments. By 7 PM I was developing keyboard / mouse back strain. We are the modern variant of industrial workers, harnessed to our machines, which results in physical injury. And mental too? Are the machines our masters?

Why hasn't someone invented some other method for creating and manipulating information that doesn't involve a keyboard, a mouse or a touch screen? Why haven't voice activated solutions taken off, I wonder? Because it is just too hard to recognise speech?

Rain, rain, go away. Hey! A sunny day!! Yay!!!

Saving this here for later use in class.

Blackboard has been troublesome all week (slow to the point of unusable) but today it is OK. As a result I was able to work out a solution to a problem I was having with groups and surveys, and not a moment too soon. There definitely is a learning curve with this upgrade. So glad I did the pilot over the summer!

My parents' phone is still down -- and my friend's power is still out. Here is a really interesting article about the storm and here is wonderful compilation of pictures and explanations (although I was the contributor, not the photographer, for the three shots attributed to me).

Added: Picked lots of stuff in the garden. The rain has done some damage, but all in all it has been a good year. And, the Castleton Village Wide Garage Sale is tomorrow, September 10m starting at 9:00 a.m. Looks like it has not been canceled, as so many other activities have been recently.

A mixed bag of stuff. First, two unrelated designs I want to comment upon:

I think this is a worthy idea, and I understand why they wanted to include the various elements, but the design is awful! I feel almost guilty saying it, but it is so ugly.

But at least it isn't oddly jarring...

Like this, which has a nice design, aside from the "Upstate American" part. I'm an Upstate New Yorker, capisce? If "American" is to be modified - then I'm a Northeastern American. I guess they chose the label because ignoring the meaning, to the ears it "sounds" better. But I would have either left the slogan off - the design is sufficient - or just used "Upstate." Maybe all lower case. As it is, it doesn't work.

What's worse, it is not at all transparent and seems like someone trying to capitalize on tragedy. How do we know how much is being donated? Who is running this operation? Where is the money going exactly?

I hope it is simply a clumsy mistake by well-intended people. I do like the idea of upstate pride especially in the wake of this tragedy and the logo itself is fine, but it just feels wrong. If it is on the level and they don't intend to profit, why not make this a donation in itself and not try to cover the costs of production? Just give out the tee-shirts as incentives for people to donate to real charities who are helping with the recovery.

That segues to the weather: the fire siren went off today a couple of times. It is becoming a very familiar sound. The Hudson has flooded Main Street again. On facebook, there are reports of flooding, advised evacuations and school closings. Olive Day is canceled in West Shokan - it was scheduled for Saturday. My parents still have no telephone. Stop raining already!

And finally, the semester: Had an unhappy experience in my evening class last night. Very few people had done the reading so discussion was not productive - a variety of excuses including "I don't have the book yet" then when I said both articles are on blackboard "I didn't know" or "I thought it was due next week" and finally when I said I told them about ten times last week: "I wasn't paying attention." But, on the flip side, three students waited for me after class to thank me for calling the slackers out on it, instead of allowing them to take advantage of the few students who were prepared.

That class followed an afternoon class where Blackboard 9.1 wouldn't load the log on page, I called for help, wound up rebooting, was able to log on but it was so slow I couldn't use any document including my powerpoint. I got through class without that crutch, of course, but the dry erase marker I had with me was almost out of ink - made putting anything on the whiteboard a challenge. I told the students, this is a good example for why you have to have alternative strategies in mind when developing a lesson plan. Things don't always go the way you intend!

Then, today, Blackboard was incredibly slow again from home - I rebooted, it gave me an error message when I tried to log on, and I could not hold the real-time chat I had scheduled, or get any of the work done I had planned. Wednesdays are "online class days" so this is not good!

Added: More details here. I'm going with good intentions, but painfully tacky. Donate to something on this list instead.

Still Later: I had a spell where I made silk screened tee-shirts. Eventually, I will dig out a picture of some of my creations, scan and post it here. Gave them out as party favors. Thinking about the clever idea above with bad timing/execution, I came up with a much better phrase: Upstate New York: Resourceful and Resilient.