Lots of random stuff

Yesterday was potentionally my weirdest day teaching ever. I first had a girl into the writing center whose teacher was clearly marking her down because she isn't a native speaker of english. I put a note in her file that proofreading her is okay--most of her ideas are well developed as it is, but she's naturally very frustrated. I, too, was frustrated because her teacher is suggesting that she "listen to real Americans speak more" and to "memorize grammar rules" rather than have somebody proofread her damn papers (and those are highly edited comments, the real ones were quite a bit worse). He wants her to be able to write perfect the first time, and I don't think that's going to happen even in a native speaker. *sigh*

Anyway, then I go to work, where one of my students gives her paper on Gonorrhea, because she's a nurse and she's surprised at how many people come in with it. Fine. Then one of my over achievers all but admits that she has it by asking extensive questions about symptoms and testing, and wouldn't let me cut her off. Just EW. There's some things I don't need to know people!

And then another student failed to turn in a paper or a presentation, just outright refused to do it. Okay, fine. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. This is a potentionally pre-comp class though, and I grade as such. This is EASY POINTS. So why not do it, even if it's crap, to earn at least some of those easy points?

Lastly, I've finally perhaps decided what I want to do with blogging/wikis/so on next term. I'm thinking of having a class blog with all students as potential posters. It'll be half blog/half discussion board, and I suspect if all the info is in one place they might be more likely to read each other, leave comments, and try to write something somewhat unique. At least, that's the idea.

I'm still sorely tempted to try to use the message board and picture system in Facebook in order to discuss things with my class. However, I used a "question" community of college students on Livejournal to trial run that idea, and most of them were against it because they want their public profiles to remain private, away from their teachers. I've had an account on there since the month the site opened, and so have other youngish instructors I know, so privacy? Good luck with that. I understand their position though.

I think that there is a great deal of technology out there that students are already using that COULD be used in the classroom, potentionally very well. But if students are dead set against it being used that way, and I only want to do it to get that publication credit, then I know I really shouldn't. I've known far too many graduate students and faculty that use technology in the classroom as an easy way to get published, and I don't really want to be one of them (mostly because I thought they were batshit crazy when *I* was an undergrad). Still, I think that social networking systems might be the wikis and blogs of tomorrow, it just isn't something that I can do right now.