Tuesday, January 18, 2011

First Day of Class

Ah, the joys! It's the first day of class, so of course the server goes down and I am unable to access Blackboard, my college email, or anything like it; which makes updating things for my hybrid course -- half on-campus, half online -- a bit impossible. And no doubt there were students who were wanting to get some of the online orientation modules done and out of the way, and they won't be able to get on, either. Maybe someday my half-online course can have an online component.

I also somehow completely forgot that I was changing one of the books for this term (trying Plato's Republic rather than the Gorgias), and therefore have to rethink the second quarter of the course -- I have things ready to go, but I never pulled it together, because somehow I thought my plan was to wait until next term to try it, especially since this is only my second term with a hybrid and hybrids are very time-intensive to teach already. Apparently when I actually ordered the textbooks I was of a different mind. Whoops. There was an absent-minded professor thing to do. Fortunately, no harm done; I just have to edit the syllabus and the schedule of readings. Good thing I always check to see that the books came into the bookstore, though.

It will be nice not to be driving all the time, though; last term I was driving a crazy amount of time four days of week. My hybrid class's campus is way down south, about thirty minutes, but since it's hybrid, the actual class is only one day a week, and the rest of it is online. The other days of the week I'm at the campus closest to me, about 15-20 minutes walking distance at my pace (which is fairly quick). That will be nice; I cannot really convey to you how much I hate driving.

We'll see what crazy things happen tomorrow for the first day of my other two courses; something's bound to happen.