Tuesday, December 18, 2012

(Sweet) Unintended Consequences

Several of my students have complained that they're having trouble seeing their grades on our LMS, so I initiated an email exchange with tech support. The upshot: the grade book is working just fine, but, at this point in the semester, it's so large that it's taking a while to load -- long enough that students used to instantaneous results, and/or those trying to check grades via the (somewhat buggy) cell phone app, or other slow connections, may conclude that it isn't working at all.

Translation: all those little mini-assignments that I have to create to keep my easily-distracted students on course toward the goal of completing a larger assignment, and that I have to grade in order to get the students to take them seriously (and the grades for which a few students haggle over every.single.time one appears) are now making it difficult for said students to check their grades obsessively from their phones (and/or whatever other mobile devices they've been using to send me brief, nearly-incomprehensible messages about their grades all semester).  I can live with that.

4 comments:

  1. And IS/IT doesn't even get blamed?

    It's a Festivus Miracle!

    Crap, now it's all dusty in my office...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope. They replied very quickly and helpfully, confirming what I suspected myself. We've got quite good IT folks (and not such a great LMS, but they do what they can to keep it, and us, working).

      Delete

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