Joe Oldham: SMP

Spring 08 I tried using this blog to manage courses. Semi-painless semi-flop. Too many static pages, which will only grow worse and worse over time. It would be great if I could use webCT, since that is supposedly designed for the task. But I find the interface so awful I will only use webCT for material that needs to have access restricted to a specific class. Static web pages had the growth problem — the archive is a mess. I’m not going to try to roll my own. So this time around I’ll rely more on the wiki. Here are the hopes:

• The interface is decent.
• Students can watch a page, so they can get email when things change. SHould help with “keep up” — maybe better than an RSS feed here.
• Part of the role of the wiki is archiving communal knowledge. As it pertains to a course, that iterates over semesters, the wiki seems to make sense. There will be an end-of-semester winnowing burden; separating the parts that need to persist from parts that need to be archived.
• Archiving may be manageable. Wikis hold lots of static pages. The course article can link to its own archive kind of naturally.
• Heavier use of the wiki for courses may promote use of the wiki, which is something we want to see happen.

Wonder what the approach will be next time…

Tuesday March 4 I will not be on campus. Email if needed. Back Wednesday

M, W, F will be normal schedule & availability. On Tuesday I will probably work from home to try to catch up (letters, grading,…) I will be available by email. On Thursday I will hold hours a little late: 11am-3pm, as I need to arrive a little late — probably about 10:30am.

I had failed to post office hours for the term. That is corrected. See Contact Page