Tuesday, August 19, 2008

In Which It Becomes Clear That My Online Course Will Not Be as Cool As I'd Like

Ok, so I'm not going to spew all of the venom that I would like to spew on this subject, but suffice it to say that it is very difficult to do an excellent online course when resources that one was made to believe were readily available and easily accessible are not, in fact, either. Oh, the course will go, and it will be fine, but I am pretty much decided that I will not be enlisting the "help" of the office that is supposed to exist for the purpose of serving faculty in my area. In some (many?) respects, this will make my life much easier. In other respects, I'm filled with rage that it's "easier" to do a brand new course without support than with it.

The only thing that tempers my rage is that at least this course is for a department that is not my own and is about subject matter that I don't give two shits about. Well, that's not really true. I'm interested in the subject matter. But I am not committed to it, and it will not play a role in my broader life as a scholar. Which is why I agreed to do this course in the first place.

But at the same time, all of that excitement I was feeling this morning and all of that energy I had seems to be gone. Why? Because it doesn't matter one way or the other how invested I am. So I'm just letting it go. I'll do my best, within the constraints, and that will have to be just fine. Fuck it.

3 comments:

Meansomething said...

This post is Fig. 1 in the textbook of what happens when you don't support your faculty well. I'm sorry. I recognize that feeling of realizing "it doesn't matter one way or the other how invested I am," and it's rotten. I'm sorry.

Arbitrista said...

Why is it administrations always do stupid stuff like this? It's like they want things to fail.

Mel said...

are you sure you don't work at my university?

sigh. this kind of crap around technology support only fosters Ludditism among the faculty (not you, but all the ones who couldn't do it on their own at all)