Blackboard, changing technology leaves us with a lot to be desired
In semesters past, I normally had a class or two where our dearly beloved Blackboard was necessary. Now, suddenly this semester five of my classes make constant use of it.
These days I feel like a Blackboard junkie. I see Blackboard more often than I see my wife. I should make a Facebook group called “Blackboard is my other Heroin” to sidekick that group called “Facebook is my Heroin.”
I realize since I started college back in the Stone Age (we’re talking pre-September 11), I am probably too cemented in the ways of old America.
In the not too distant future, when I’m still an undergraduate and my brother, who is a decade younger than I am, has almost earned his degree, I’ll say “Sonny, there was a day in which we did our homework on paper.”
He would say, “Gee whiz, Father Time, did you write with sticks and stones way back then?”
I’d say “No, no, no, whippersnapper, that was Mom and Dad’s time. They used what was called a ‘pencil’ and paper to do homework. In my day, we used computers and printers. Our professors would actually write grades on our papers, and eventually hand them back to us.”
Then he’d point out that I’m graying, balding and my bifocals are out of style. At least by then maybe I’d be a balding man who has embraced Blackboard. For now however, I am often annoyed by it.
For example, weeks ago during my Thursday morning class, the instructor gave an assignment. I wrote myself a reminder to turn the assignment in electronically by Tuesday.
Come Monday evening homework time, I discovered via Blackboard that my assignment had been due at midnight on Sunday.
Oh, how I miss those times where only five days a week I worried about due dates.
Thanks to Digital Drop Boxes, there are Saturdays and Sundays on my calendar that have “Due…” written on them.
My dismay with Blackboard doesn’t end there, however.
Some instructors don’t keep up their end of the Blackboard bargain. They’ll promise to post all the notes online. Three weeks later, they stop posting them, leading to many fruitless log-ons from students in search of the lost notes of Atlantis.
Also, don’t you love it when the top of syllabus is lined with the words “Fall 2003”?
This means your professor hasn’t updated certain Blackboard documents for years. It’s especially wonderful when you are entering the spring term, and the syllabus says “Exam One is on September 23”.
I had one class where the Syllabus had accurate due dates but faulty assignment descriptions. Meanwhile the Assignment Descriptions document was accurate for our assignment descriptions but the due dates were false. How confusing!
Because of all this, I find myself logging onto Blackboard with a compulsive paranoia. I have a mistrust that I read something wrong, or that something was modified since the last time I checked it.
But even chalkboards had their day, right? Heck, they still have their day in some of the 100-year-old buildings on campus. Maybe back before my time, students made multi-daily trips back to their classroom’s chalkboard in order to assure that their assignment was due Sunday night.
I guess I just better start swimming with new technologies or I’ll sink like a stone, because the times are always changing.
Erich is a senior studying art.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum