Comments on: #WednesdayWrite: Midterm Evaluation

By: Yibo Xu

Yibo Xu — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 03:30:52 +0000

I do love this course since it’s really helpful with my writing skills and Ms. Traci is a very nice teacher with her own way of teaching. I love her way that how she grade the work. She uses pass or fail as the grade scale which I really like and students can always resubmit their works as many times as they want until they pass the project.
What I don’t like the course is that I sometimes miss the posts online which is an important way to gain a grade higher than B. Sometimes I just can’t find them and sometimes I forget to o it. This is actually not really about the course, since it’s my own fault. But still I feel like it’s a little bit mess for me.
About how to make me learn better I think professor already did this pretty well since I really like the video feedback, it’s very clear and helpful.
The most helpful about this course is that professor provided so many things about how to write and I really learned so many things from the weekly posts.
All by all, I love this course so far. And I hope I can get a good grade with it.

By: Justin+Du

Justin+Du — Sun, 04 Mar 2018 06:23:15 +0000

At first, I was hesitant to take this course online. But after receiving recommendations from my peers, I decided to give it a try. So far, I have been impressed with the course’s ability to keep me engaged in discussion posts and peer reviews. The discussion posts so far have been interesting enough to where it does not feel like a chore to leave a reply in one. I also think that the peer reviews make both parties feel like they have accomplished something. I thoroughly enjoyed the first project as it not only served a nice ice-breaker, but was a good way to express myself in a professional manner. However, I did not enjoy the second project. I did not find it as helpful as others have. I also think that it was very difficult to provide feedback on the second project. Another critique is that the grade scale could be altered slightly. I think that every assignment should be graded 50% on participation and %50 on accuracy. This would avoid a bell curve scale final grade.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 20:49:35 +0000

New solution. I found that if I turn on gravatars, you can get a pop-up with the number of comments for each person when you hover over the avatar. It’s a little slow (blame Ajax) but at least you don’t have to click and get that popup box every time.

I’ll share info on how to create your own gravatar after break so that anyone who wants to can customize the image that shows.

By: Benjamin A. Beheydt

Benjamin A. Beheydt — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 19:08:59 +0000

Thus far, I like how the course is going. The work load is pretty fair, and there are no surprises. The objectives for each project are clear and the direction of the course is pretty easy to understand. I like how the grades are determined by how much effort you put into the course work rather than how well you can write, and I love the video feedback system. I wish I was able to spend more time focusing on work for this class because, though it is challenging, the work tends to be more relaxing than other classes (mainly due to the fact that you can really work at your own pace). I enjoy the format of the posts throughout the week and I think the discussions are productive and worthwhile. There is truly nothing to complain about in my opinion. I look forward to the rest of the semester!

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 13:34:44 +0000

Overall I think that the course has been going well. I agree with some of the other people that have written that at first the course seems overwhelming. There’s lots of information to figure out, and it seems like it’s spread across multiple pages. One thing that might make the beginning easier would be to have an introduction video of some sort. I think that that would be useful because it would collect a lot of the information about the course into a single video, and also add more human engagement in the course, like the video feedback on the Bio did.

Once the initial barrier is climbed, I feel like the course makes sense. I just had to get acclimated to a system that I hadn’t really used before. I feel like the assignments are all worthwhile and worth doing, and I don’t really have any complaints about the course. My only real feedback is that the beginning could be made easier to ease into.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 07:21:19 +0000

Okay, my php isn’t nearly good enough to change things. I managed to kill the entire plugin (go me!) Thank goodness for backups.

I do have a way to create a list of all people and their number of comments, but I fear that would just increase the competition anxiety that so many people talked about. I’ll keep the issue on my to-do list and maybe I can come up with something.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:30:13 +0000

Thanks for the comments on the new system. You can see how many comments you’ve made by clicking the lowercase i on the right side of your comment (across from your name). It pops up a box that lets you see the number of comments. If you click on the Activity tab in that box, you can get to links and excerpts for all your comments.

I changed the system in response to someone who asked about a way to see all of the comments she’d made, so she could easily tell if she had already commented on something. I’m testing this plug-in out for now. I’ll see if there’s a way to make the number visual after your name again.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:26:18 +0000

Dates for the group peer review are always tough to figure out. Obviously they have to come in before the piece is due if they are going to help you improve; but it means you have extra work to do. I think part of the complication is the online nature of things. If this were a class in a classroom, you’d all bring your drafts to class and share them in 50 minutes or so. Boom. Done. But online it can’t work that way since everyone has a different schedule. If you have suggestions for making it work better (or if anyone else does) I would love to hear them.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:22:58 +0000

Sounds like things are working to your benefit, Ben. Let me know if that changes!

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:21:46 +0000

I hate busy work too, so I’ll see if there’s a way to make things less redundant. I wish there were an easy way to make the system more like Reddit, where there are up/down votes and clearer connections among the discussions.

Regarding the two notifications: I get two also. I thought I had something quirky set up, but if you’re seeing it too, maybe there’s something wrong. I’ll investigate.