Wednesday, January 26, 2011

a real email I actually sent

(in response to this email, sent 10 minutes after class began)


"Hi Dr. A.!

I'm in your Intro to Basketweaving class, and I can't seem to find the powerpoint for today on moodle. Am I just being stupid here? Is there a link you can give me?

Have a nice day!

Yours, Clueless"

***
"Dear Clueless,

I don't put the Powerpoints up on Moodle, because I find that many students just download them instead of coming to class.

Have a nice day,

yours, Dr. A."

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 26, 2011 at 5:41 PM

    Thanks a lot, MA! The beer I was enjoying is now plastered against my monitor!

    I nominate this for funniest post of the year on CM. All this post does is win.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Irritated IsisJanuary 26, 2011 at 5:55 PM

    yay MA! stick to those guns!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Contingent CassandraJanuary 26, 2011 at 6:30 PM

    Nicely done! And since any snarkiness is apparent only from the context, you're completely safe should she complain to your chair, dean, etc. (of course, if you're lucky, you have a chair, dean, etc. who would actually appreciate the message even more given the context).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great Lakes GretaJanuary 27, 2011 at 7:53 AM

    I love it. Perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Richard HughesJanuary 28, 2011 at 10:07 AM

    I might be diving in to the deep end on this one, but here goes...

    I'm not going to comment on this PARTICULAR case, since I don't know what field of study this particular case pertains to.

    But I will throw out there that at least in my experience making lecture slides available is incredibly helpful, both during the class when it comes to revising later. I've found that both in science and various philosophy courses.

    Additionally, I find the argument that putting the slides online will encourage students not to attend dubious at best. Let's face it -- if a student is willing to skip class because they can find a vague outline of what happened on the net, they're probably willing to skip class anyway and justify it some other way. Or just not give a crap while in the lecture theatre, which is hardly an improvement...

    ReplyDelete
  6. JessMarch 1, 2011 at 2:18 AM

    I passed Chem I with a B- by never attending class. It's the only class I ever skipped, and the only class where the prof posted the notes before class. It's funny, because that's not even how I study. Since it was an 8:30 class, I figured I'd rather sleep in and read powerpoint slides than fight morning traffic and sit in a cold auditorium. Sleep + Not missing anything = Skipping class

    ReplyDelete

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