Ruralocity Blog

Now that I’m two years into my graduate program, with the finish line (hopefully) within sight this fall, I figured it’s time to start ruffling feathers. Nobody reads this anyway, so why not pick fights, right?

OK, I’m not really picking fights. But I do want to point out some things that have driven me nuts over the last few years of online (or online-supported) courses I’ve taken–in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, it will change some practices and standard thinking when it comes to online learning. Here’s the first: Posting assignments in Word format.

I’m sure this practice is perfectly transparent and un-noticable in the Windows/Internet Explorer paradigm, but for those of us working outside of said paradigm, it’s annoying. On my Macs, when I want to look at an assignment, I have to download a file and open it. Outside of my browser. Yeah, Leopard’s Quick Look feature makes this less of an issue, but it’s still an issue because I’ve got a file sitting on my hard drive that I don’t need.

Most, if not all, course/learning management systems afford instructors the ability to provide assignments and instructions to students in-system. I know Blackboard and Moodle do. Use them! There might come a day when the majority of your students don’t use a Microsoft product (I don’t), and running these files through a converter will be a nuisance at best and a reason to drop a class at worst.