Trying again: Fall 2014

So, in order to see if the Janux software is improved from last spring semester (when I enrolled in and sadly dropped the History of Science class), I enrolled in a Fall course. History of Science is not being offered again, and the Native American class that I would have liked is not offered either, so I enrolled in Understanding the Global Community. I'm taking a different approach this time. Instead of proactively seeking things out as I did with History of Science, I am going to depend on notifications from the course to let me know when to do things and what is going on. I got an email welcoming me to the course, totally generic as you can see below.

The email promised information soon as we get close to August 18. I would say August 17 is pretty close to August 18 (you cannot really get closer), but no information has come in the email. Maybe at the site? I logged on, but the course is still closed and does not open until tomorrow. Notice that the email urges me to share my enrollment in the course through social media... but is there a hashtag provided...? Uh, nope.

Also, as you can see below, the instructor shows up as a grey-head... that does not bode well for the course, does it? Generic email, generic avatar. Ouch. Online presence for both the instructor AND for the students are ingredients I consider essential. But here the instructor is just a generic avatar, and there is no clickable link to learn more (I tried clicking on Course Instructor to the left there, and I clicked on Suzette's name, the avatar... nothing). 

This lack of presence is especially regrettable because Suzette has a wonderful presence at Twitter which would be great to share with the students. In fact, it's her dynamic presence at Twitter that motivated me to choose this class. I checked her Twitter stream to see if she is using a hashtag for the course, but there is no mention of the course in her stream. And as for a live Twitter widget bringing her Twitter presence into the course space... uh, nope.

Sigh. I feel obliged to do this to see if the Janux software and course design have improved from last year, but this is not off to a good start. 

Sigh again.