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The first time I tried college, in the early ’90s, there was no such thing as “online homework.” The Web only existed in its most primitive bang-the-rocks-together format. Nobody had anything other than the vaguest pie-in-the-sky thoughts about “hypermedia content delivery,” and you went to class, you did your homework, you took it to the next class, and the world kept turning. The simple life exemplified.
Today, everyone’s subscribing to the techno craze. The concept of offering coursework and class information online has reached a stage I like to refer to as “immature proliferation” – everybody’s doing it, but no two implementations are the same. There are no standards in this age and it’s maddening for those of us straddling the change.
Some professors use FirstClass conferences to convey vital information about their classes, and wish to be reached through FC’s built-in email functionality. Others eschew FC and insist on using the older Blackboard system or WebCT, which is the same thing as Blackboard — except that it’s not. One of my instructors this semester is doing both FC and Blackboard, while another built his own course website.
And that’s before we even get to the websites for the coursework itself. The math course I’m enrolled in has a FirstClass conference and an online homework/testing tool devised by the textbook publisher. Intro to Chemistry uses a completely different publisher-created online homework system, which operates differently from the one used in math, and there’s a totally separate one for the laboratory section material.
I noticed that my public speaking book also has a code in it for such a system, but, miraculously, that instructor isn’t using it. I’m guessing that’s why the bookstore only had used copies of that book, so that people didn’t have to pay extra for the access code – an unexpectedly thoughtful gesture on their part.
And indeed, they do cost extra. In chemistry′s case, I paid $70 on top of the already extortionate price of the textbook itself for the privilege of receiving a small fiberboard card with one of those codes you get when you buy an EA game. My “books and miscellaneous equipment” budget for this semester has overrun the blithe estimate on the university’s financial aid page by about 120 percent. Even more annoyingly, as it turns out, I’m not even in chemistry this semester, but that’s another story.
But the cost makes me happier than keeping track of all these separate, differently operated, individually usernamed and passworded, universally mission-critical Web widgets.
Understand, I have nothing against the principle at work. I understand the attraction of the online homework systems for the instructors: The Web engine grades the student’s work as it’s done and provides the instructor with an impartial completed grade at the end. No more spending all night grading homework papers — professors deserve to have a life too, after all. And the homework system my math class is using is absurdly helpful – so much so it makes me feel a bit like I’m cheating off the kid next to me whenever I click the “See an Example” button.
No, what gets me is the insane proliferation of the things. I’m taking four classes right now and have to keep track of no fewer than eight different online data streams: FC conferences for three of them; one publisher-driven online homework system; one class Blackboard page; another one’s WebCT module; that one instructor’s homebrew course website; and my regular student inbox, where administrative stuff frequently arrives from other sources.
No wonder the university expects every student to own a powerful laptop. You need one just to store the bookmark file.
Eighteen years ago, none of this stuff existed and in another 10-20 years, the mad rush will have died down and some standards will have arrived, or civilization will have fallen and it won’t matter. Right now, though, it’s just a mess.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have homework to do. Hopefully the website’s up.
Bangor Daily News