Lex from Lakeland Swats Away As the Semester Crumples.

• To Worried Wilbur, whose concern for his grades leads him to ask "Can I pull a C in class?" as I'm collecting quizzes but has never yet managed to lead him to my office door for a real conversation about his performance, grades, and future: Your desperate email begins by addressing me as "Mr," a perfectly innocent slip that I could let pass except that I don't want to. You've come crawling at the end of the semester, desperate for an eleventh-hour gesture of unearned mercy, and to my mind that level of desperation calls for some serious ass-kissing. So let's "Dr" it up, shall we? You got a D on the midterm, the second-lowest score in the class. You turned in only half of the short written assignments, managed to lay claim to only 19 of the 70 quiz points available over the course of the semester, and stopped attending class altogether three weeks ago. Having not done the work and not made any effort to seek my assistance, you email me, 16 weeks into the semester, to ask if you can still turn in your assignments (even though some of them are nearly three months late), take make-up quizzes, and perform extra credit work. I'll save you a trip: the boat has done sailed, and you've been left standing on the F dock. Irresponsible banks and carmakers get bailouts, slacker students don't.



• To Ballsy Brenda, who sent to me--a week after our last class meeting--all of the assignments she had failed to turn in on time: Let me get this straight. You did only the second half of the first assignment and the first half of the second assignment? And you did the third assignment on the wrong text? And you thnk I should give you partial credit for all this partially completed work, even though the deadlines were weeks ago? Do you realize that the first assignment was due in September? How much credit should I give to half an assignment turned in nine and a half weeks late? (I use the rhetoric of "giving" rather than "earning" because, let's face it, your half-assed, slacker efforts haven't earned you a damn thing.) I'll make you a deal: I won't bother to read this hopelessly late work, and you'll accept with grateful heart and tearful eye the 4 ¾ points (out of a possible 100) I'm writing next your name in my gradebook.



• To Dumbass Dick, who stated rather than asked, "You're offering opportunities for extra credit, right?": Listen carefully Grasshopper, because I'll only say this once: In my class, there is only credit; there is no "extra."



• To the Six Kings and Queens of Slackertude, who couldn't manage, over the course of 16 weeks, to complete an assignment that required nothing more than a simple Google search and seven minutes of partial concentration: You are all pathetic. I could not design an easier assignment. I'm guessing that if I just gave you points, you couldn't manage to hold out your hands to take them. The assignment asked you to do what you already do all day, every day with your friends: surf the web and write a short note about what you saw there. While you're posting and blogging and twittering away to your friends, you might have managed to complete the assignment and learn a little something you didn't know before. But you preferred to spend your internet time on activities that taught you nothing and that earn you no points towards your degree. And to the two of you who have emailed me asking for more time: check your Facebook walls for my very special "sucks to be you" reply.

Dr. Schadenfrau Returns To Smack Down Some Online Learners.

Dr. Schadenfrau here again — you may remember me as maladapted, and with too many cats.

In all the rantings on RYS, there’s one I haven’t seen: online students, especially adult learners in advanced programs. We’ve battered the folks in the undergrad face-to-face venue, slammed international students and their understanding of intellectual property rights, and railed at idiot parents but no one’s had a good kick at the online cohort. So, like David Beckham, here I go.
My good pal at another institution, Dr. Dick Tator, and I teach face-to-face classes but a good portion of our load is delivered fully online. In particular, our online students are usually adults undertaking advanced-level work. Now, I’m not even considering whether or not advanced studies are truly possible or desirable as fully online entities. I don’t make university policies; I only heed to the whims of administrators and deliver the goods. I don’t, after all, have tenure.

Both Dr. Tator and I deliver structured courses with weekly requirements including readings, presentations, collaboration and all the other muck that’s supposed to invigorate the experience. Propelling us forward in the endeavor is the Learning Management System (LMS) for online delivery. If you’re unfamiliar, just remember that the average LMS is designed by Torquemada and members of Byzantium Engineering Inc. to ensure maximum pain and complexity, especially for new students. As the instructor, you’re not escaping this techno-dungeon without some shrieks of agony either.

Over time and drinks, Dr. Tator and I have found that online learning attracts a fairly small but consistent set of students to its techno-cloisters. Generally, most students are at least 2 or more of the archetypes listed below. See if you can identify any combinations in your online courses from the list:

Barbie Bandwidth. Barbie can’t do her work on time because she doesn’t have an internet connection at home and isn’t smart enough to poach from her neighbor’s unsecured wireless network. She roams coffee shops and other places touting “free internet” and can never seem to find a stable connection for viewing the weekly content, meeting online group members or submitting assignments. The connectivity requirements, as defined by the school, remain like gossamer fantasies of pixies at dusk for Barbie. Litanies of emails await you, the instructor of record, about technical problems with the university’s system.

Frankie Foreigner. OK, so Frankie got past the various language batteries, admissions essays and what not but now he’s asking questions about what he’s supposed to do every week. Frankie will email to ask if he should read Chapter 5, do the quiz and write an analysis; of course, the instructions on the LMS will say, “read Chapter 5, complete the quiz and write an analysis”. Instructor responses that say, “Please follow the instructions” generate more emails from Frankie asking again if he should read Chapter 5, complete the quiz and write an analysis. Frankie will then read Chapter 6, ignore the quiz and write a first-person narrative on puppies, replete with a non-sequitur Haiku.

Ida Impenetrable. No matter what, reading and following instructions do not seem to meld with Ida’s way of doing things. Ida never took the required tutorial for the LMS so she can’t follow any instructor’s directions because she doesn’t understand the system’s vocabulary. Every assignment she submits reflects her inability to carry out what’s asked of her. Her poor grades do not clue her in to her own shortcomings; rather, they make her pounce jackal-like on the instructor—that’d be you—with email litanies comparing her grade to Mary’s and demanding an explanation.

Ken Know-it-all. Yeah, Ken is that special guy; as an instructor, you wonder why he even deigned to apply to your institution’s Podunk Program when clearly, he aligns himself as Harvard or MIT material. On his profile, he is an “expert” in 27 activities. No matter what the situation, Ken’s emails begin with “In my 20 years working for [insert list of global-mega companies here]” and manage to mention his certification as a saturation diver, black belt in tae kwon do, and philharmonic sousaphone player. All emails from Ken cite how he cannot understand what’s asked of him in the assignments, as they don’t relate to any of the 27 areas in which he’s already an expert.

Marvin Midlife. The kids are in college and he’s thinking about doing something different—undefined and nebulous, but different. More than likely, Marvin just received a buy-out package and an empty box from his last employer. It matters not. Rather than getting a sports car and dating an idiot, Marvin’s decided an advanced online program is the way to go. Each week, Marvin obtusely asks how what we’re doing could possibly relate to his non-existent career goals or the real world. No words will appease him; Marvin’s indignant 24/7. The indignation generally ramps up each week via email and vacillates, it seems, depending on his meds, bipolarity and all of his friends with the first name of “Jack” or "Jim".

Mary Menopause. As ovulation ceased, Mary felt the need to fulfill herself in other ways. She can read and write but she’s totally computer illiterate. She produced her senior thesis on a typewriter and chose to stop the personal evolution then and there. She sees no need to buy a new computer as she’s got a perfectly fine Pentium (1992) system at home. She is utterly perplexed at why the LMS doesn’t seem to run on her computer. She also doesn’t understand that the underlined blue text in the course content is a hyperlink to other material. Thus, she misses half of each week’s content. Litanies of instructor-directed email, sobbing phone conversations and countless calls to tech support for HRT are her standard operating procedures.

Owen Opensource. Owen is an Open Orifice software guy, vehemently disparages the LMS to other students, and will not download the free-to-students Microcerf Orifice and use it. Never mind that his files don’t open properly, if at all; he insists all semester that Open Orifice is identical to Microcerf’s version and that the problem lies either with the LMS or with you, the instructor. Using that logic, it can then be said that I, Dr. Schadenfrau, am identical to Heidi Klum in every way. And, providing you truss me in lingerie, put me in a pitch dark room and get very, very drunk, that statement is true.

Sarah Singleton. Sarah is in her late 20’s or mid-30’s. Against, the grad advisor’s advice, she’s taking 3 online classes in addition to working a fulltime office job and holding down a part-time job in highway construction. She also cares for an elderly aunt, fosters an immigrant family, and runs an orphanage in her living room. To make up for the fact that she hasn’t had a personal life since G.H.W. Bush was in office, Sarah fills her days with a series of rotating crises and high-pressure demands. She vaporizes from the course for weeks at a time and wonders why you, the instructor, will not cut her any slack. Don’t even think about emailing this one regarding priorities. The elderly can’t be forgotten as roads need to be paved so degree wielding orphans can foster immigrant office workers [insert social outrage here for even suggesting otherwise].

Steve Sloth. Steve lists an impressive roster of activities on his profile including saving gnarly rump-breasted hoot owls, ending global warming with composting toilets, and other whacked-out shit. By mid-semester, you learn Steve has really been puttering inertly at his low-end accounting job now for 15 years and hitting the World of Warcraft (WoW) scene. His real impetus for the master’s? He’s met some online WoW hottie doing a post-doc in quantum physics and he’s feeling a bit inadequate as per his endless stream of whining, limp-dick emails to you, the instructor. No doubt being touched by human hands, other than his own, has never happened.

Prof. Claus Makes His Yearly Stop To Let Search Committees Know That They're Always Naughty, Never Nice.

Ho, ho, ho, Search Committees! It’s been nearly a year since I last dropped you a line, so I thought now was as good a time as any to update you on the mail that’s been filling up my jolly old mailbag.

If I’m being honest—and why wouldn’t good old Professor Claus be honest?—this year’s correspondence has been a bit boring. Most job seekers have written to me about the same old problems. No response to applications, no firm commitments about interviews (even though conference time is right around the corner), rejection letters sent for positions job seekers didn’t even apply for, rejection letters not personally addressed. Really, it’s the same old story year after year, it seems. Any idea why that might be the case, search committees?

That said, I did receive one poignant letter that I feel obligated to share with you. Here it is:

Dear Professor Claus,

Please pass my words on to all the search committees you converse with at the end of the year. This year, more than any other year, I have realized that the knuckleheads on those committees—from both the academic and administrative sides of the street—are completely disorganized.

Here’s what I mean: I have applied for countless positions this year, and, as usual, those applications required me to perform an unfathomable amount of acrobatic just to get my materials to said committees. I can’t count the amount of times I put together an enormous doorstop of an application packet (that cost several, several dollars to send), was also forced to send an official transcript right up front (that cost some more coin), and then had to contact my electronic filing service to send out copies of my letters of recommendation (that also cost some more dough).

For the moment, let’s forget about the fact that no sane, ethical search committee asks for this much shit up front and just cut right to the chase: After spending all of that time, energy, and money just to dive into a pool of hundreds of other applicants for a position that, let’s be honest, was pretty shitty to begin with, the fuckheads closed the search because of “funding issues.”

Seriously, where the hell have all of these people been since September? It’s no surprise to anyone that we’ve been in an enormous economic slump for MONTHS! Couldn’t they have gotten the funding situation squared away before posting the position? I mean, that’s what logical people (perhaps even, say, people smart enough to earn Ph.D.s) would do. Please, Professor Claus, please get the word out to these people that this shit just ain’t right.

Well, there you go, committee members. Your shit just ain’t right. Perhaps if you get your shit together, young newly minted Ph.D.s might not resent your disorganized asses so much. At the very least, if you got your shit together, you wouldn’t have to hear from me every year!

Merry Conferencing!

The Distance Ed Awards, Where Everyone Gets F'd.

It’s time for the Distance Education Academy Awards. I’m you host, Tom Talkinghead. We’re really excited this year, since there have been so many new developments in our local distance education classes and they’ve led to some truly special moments in pedagogy. Before we get started, we have a tap-dance number which will be performed by Spineless Sam and the Administrators, doing the golf shoe shuffle on a dance floor which consists of the naked backs of adjuncts and untenured profs, all of whom have been told to bend over, hold their ankles, and “take it like a man.”

“Worst performance by a male student in a leading role.”

The award goes to: Football Fred from Farmerville!!! We had high hopes for Fred since his first starring role in the sixty-minute special “play with the microphone button and create a symphony of percussive static which sets everyone’s teeth on edge, then pretend that you weren’t doing it.” However, this performance was completely eclipsed by Fred’s show-stealing performance in “Walk in with your buds twenty minutes late, make as much noise as possible, then have animated private discussions with the microphone off for the remaining forty minutes.” Bravo. Football Fred receives the coveted “F”.

“Worst performance by a female student in a leading role.”

The award goes to: Feckless Fanny from Farmerville!!! Fanny never fails to disappoint. From her jaw-dropping role in “You never told us that we had to use abstract thought in this class” to her cutting-edge performance-art piece via email: “I’m so sorry, but I haven’t been paying attention to you for weeks,” Fanny proves that she has all the skills necessary to hold down a job in fast food service or telemarketing. Bravo. Football Fanny also receives the coveted “F”.

“Worst performance by a male student in a supporting role.” This one is generally easy to decide, but this year we have to give a two-way tie to Fred’s buds, Phil and Frank. A supporting actor is judged by how well he supports the acts of his leading man, and Phil and Frank were outstanding. We all remember the obvious roles like “He didn’t do it” and “Why you always picking on us,” but it’s the subtle things—the eye rolling, the book shuffling, the things that often aren’t noticed since they’re only coming across thorough video monitors and classroom speakers—which really make these performances work. We have good news this term. Rather than share the “F,” we’ve gone ahead and gotten “F”s for the both of you. Congratulations, boys.

“Worst performance by a female student in a supporting role.”

The award goes to: Phoning Felicia from Farmerville!!! Felicia is another subtle actress who pretends to turn her cell phone off, but who keeps it on throughout the class, hidden away in her purse, where it can continue to disrupt the microphone signals in both classes. Her performances have the capacity to affect every single student in the classroom, ensuring that no one’s train of thought extends any longer than one minute’s duration, at which point a fresh burst of beeping and clicking whisks away any semblance of thought. While sitting through her performances, it’s impossible to not be exactly as empty-headed and dim-witted as she is. An “F” for you, Felicia. You’ve earned it.

“Worst director.”

We have a literal tour de force this year. Ordinarily this award goes to the merely incompetent, but this year we’ve reached a new height of directorship. Tanya the Farmerville Tech wins hands-down. From day three, when you wowed us all with your brilliant soliloquy: “stop picking on them—they’re good students” to your week eight outburst: “stop picking on them—they’re good students” all the way up to your week nine show-stopper: “It’s not my fault that I wasn’t here to let them into the classroom and they missed most of the class,” you were a shoo-in. However, yesterday you exceeded all expectations. Who would have expected Tanya to actually distribute student evaluation forms to everyone in the class (during a term when no evaluations were scheduled) and then to fax them directly to the Dean?!? And oh, the pathos. Did you actually TELL them to draw little frowny-faces on the bottoms of the page, or did they come up with that one on their own? Tanya, we’re sorry that there are no more “F”s to give out. However, rest assured that word of your behind-the-scenes manipulation has gotten around, and you won’t be burdened by working for the same poor little studio for much longer.