Ready for a Get-Away

School has only been in session for two weeks and already I am exhausted. Teaching 10 classes is not easy, but the demands are what drain my energy. I have moved all of my testing to online. The E-Learning module of the university opens up my tests on the day I tell it to, for the hours I designate, shows the number of questions at a time that I want it display, and only allots the amount of time I choose.

Each semester I gain wisdom. Isn't that what university is supposed to be about? If only my students would show the same increase, I would be thrilled. This was the latest go around that caused me to fizzle. The film class has a quiz weekly. The course is online only, they only need to blog their reaction to the film, write a 2-3 page essay on 1 film of the 12 for the semester, and take 12 quizzes of 10 questions each. Not a great deal of work, but to be fair, they only get 2 credits for it. 

The last time I ran this course online, I overheard a student telling another that they could do the quiz in groups. At the end of the quiz, the correct and incorrect answers were displayed. All they needed was a king penguin to test the waters, take the quiz and then share the wealth with all of the answers. In my increasing wisdom, I turned off the part that shows the answers at the end of the quiz. Sorry, guys! You will have to share something else now if you want to bond. 

They took the first quiz and one of my journalism students complains that he cannot see what questions he had marked wrong, because he was certain he had 100%. Another youngster who thinks he knows it all. I was able to go into the module and copy the 2 questions he fumbled on and sent it to him. The quiz date was over, so I had nothing to loose. 

He wrote me with gratitude and asked if he could come to my office hours each week to retrieve this information because some of the answers were ambiguous? Well, no you cannot.  First of all, of course the answers are ambiguous. He should have heard of critical thinking; he had my course in it last semester. Has he forgotten all he knew already? More importantly, now with 10 classes, I am not going to be at your beck and call like I have been in the past. Sorry about that. 

Where is my old doctor that wanted to put me on disability for a headache? I sure do miss him.

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Informational Overload

While I am slaving over a hot computer recreating our website and tossing in a student's papers here and there, Ron is in the kitchen playing on his computer. Just because I have told the students, I really don't care what you thought of the movie, the essay is supposed to be a sociological analysis of the time that surrounds the plot. Their dribble is causing me to dribble onto to the keyboard as the glazed look spreads from my forehead down to my chin. 


Salvation came when my e-mail notifier showed I've Got Mail, but no I don't use AOL. Ron, who is forty feet away sent me a link to a video he is getting hooked on. Apparently, his "To Do" list has been corrupted, leading him to believe he has too much time on his hands. 


Well, the video he sent is below, but after I laughed, it did make me think. How much information do we take in, but yet never use it for meaningful communication? This of course with my love for flow of conscientiousness brought my thoughts to information overload. Years ago, I remember the 'experts' stating that the information generated in one day is more than we could read in a lifetime. That was before FaceBook and Twitter, even.


After a search, I found an interesting article in the The Chronicle of Higher Education called Information Overload, Then and Now dated November 28, 2010. It is linked here.


Here is the video responsible for all of this.

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