IART 117 Intro to the Arts

Simply Complicated · Jun 19, 2012

I've thought the same thing with Blackboard. I have 2 classes on it for summer, I definitely like Epic better. Are you having trouble with things for this course? I haven't tried to do anything yet, but the professor sent out an email about the issues. Checking it all out tonight.

chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Jun 19, 2012

I'd like to apologize to mo2rn and Simply Complicated - I didn't realize that there already was a thread up about IART 117. With that bit of civility out of the way, I'm going to hit the "Rant" button.

There are something like 174 questions and responses in Blackboard for this course! Though some of the questions are ridiculous, many are legitimate and it seems that there are quite a few folks having difficulty with Blackboard. Understand that this is only the beginning of day 2, but I never saw this kind of mass confusion in the EPIC classes.

Reading through things, I discovered that the Arts Autobio gets posted to a discussion board. I learned this when I checked the "Groups" tab and saw that there was space reserved for a thread for this. Would have been nice to see something stating this in the either the syllabus or the assignments page, both of which provide detail about what the assignment should include and neither of which mentions posting it. There's also a quiz due this week but I didn't see a link or tab for this. I admit that I didn't look very hard but something like a quiz really ought to be prominently displayed on the home page and hard to miss and it is neither.

OK, I'll turn the rant off for now but can't resist saying that it's going to be loooong 10 weeks.

Simply Complicated · Jun 19, 2012

I'd like to apologize to mo2rn and Simply Complicated - I didn't realize that there already was a thread up about IART 117. With that bit of civility out of the way, I'm going to hit the "Rant" button.
There are something like 174 questions and responses in Blackboard for this course! Though some of the questions are ridiculous, many are legitimate and it seems that there are quite a few folks having difficulty with Blackboard. Understand that this is only the beginning of day 2, but I never saw this kind of mass confusion in the EPIC classes.
Reading through things, I discovered that the Arts Autobio gets posted to a discussion board. I learned this when I checked the "Groups" tab and saw that there was space reserved for a thread for this. Would have been nice to see something stating this in the either the syllabus or the assignments page, both of which provide detail about what the assignment should include and neither of which mentions posting it. There's also a quiz due this week but I didn't see a link or tab for this. I admit that I didn't look very hard but something like a quiz really ought to be prominently displayed on the home page and hard to miss and it is neither.
OK, I'll turn the rant off for now but can't resist saying that it's going to be loooong 10 weeks.

Only 8 weeks!! Did you get the email from the professor about the problems? He's working with IT to try and get these issues fixed I guess. I didn't catch the stuff about the quiz and all that, but I haven't really looked. I emailed the professor about a month ago to make sure I'd be good taking the class since I'm having the baby the day before class ends and he was very prompt and friendly responding to me. He seems like a decent professor. I think a lot of the postings are because people are just posting the same questions over and over without reading the other ones. I was going through last week and he looked to have responded to them all. I'm not getting too worked up yet, I'll give it a week and see if the kinks get worked out. From his email, these issues are new to him.

The good thing with his quizes, you can take them over and over until you get the grade you want. It really should be a pretty easy class once we get underway!

As far as my other thread, don't worry about it. It was a while ago I made it, before even signing up. I was just looking to see if anyone had taken the class. I just like having threads for each class, makes life so much easier

Simply Complicated · Jun 19, 2012

I just looked, the quiz is under module 1. Everything you need is there!

mo2rn, BSN, RN · Jun 20, 2012

No worries Chuckster.I still didn't post anything for this class, i hope to do my DB and autobiography by tomorrow.

Simply Complicated · Jun 22, 2012

It's really frustrating trying to get your work done, when you have to rely on other people to do theirs first. There is only one other person in my group who has posted their discussion. I want to do the extra credit as well. I'm guessing I'm just going to go ahead and comment on his so I can get this stuff done. People finally got their autobiogrpahy up last night and I got that response out of the way.

chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Jun 22, 2012

It's really frustrating trying to get your work done, when you have to rely on other people to do theirs first. There is only one other person in my group who has posted their discussion. I want to do the extra credit as well. I'm guessing I'm just going to go ahead and comment on his so I can get this stuff done. People finally got their autobiogrpahy up last night and I got that response out of the way.

I'm finding the same thing. I felt badly that I did not get my autobio and first DB post up until yesterday afternoon. As of a few minutes ago however, just under half of my section has theirs posted. All the initial postings were supposed to be up by midnight last evening, so I'm not sure what's going on. Makes responding a bit more challenging if there's not much to respond to. Gonna be a long 8 weeks . . .

mo2rn, BSN, RN · Jun 23, 2012

I'm finding the same thing. I felt badly that I did not get my autobio and first DB post up until yesterday afternoon. As of a few minutes ago however, just under half of my section has theirs posted. All the initial postings were supposed to be up by midnight last evening, so I'm not sure what's going on. Makes responding a bit more challenging if there's not much to respond to. Gonna be a long 8 weeks . . .

I think he extended it to Sunday since there were problems with BB.I did mine yesterday also but i was like the third person to post, so the pace is a bit slow.Hoping this eight week class will go by fast.

mo2rn, BSN, RN · Jun 23, 2012

By the way this word count stuff is so annoying, i guess it will take some getting use to.Still working on my DB response; hoping to get it done tonight.

Simply Complicated · Jun 23, 2012

I think he extended it to Sunday since there were problems with BB.I did mine yesterday also but i was like the third person to post, so the pace is a bit slow.Hoping this eight week class will go by fast.

Yeah, he did extend it, so hopefully the consecutive weeks won't be so bad. I guess I'm just used to the nursing courses where things are up a bit quicker.

chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Jun 27, 2012

It was somewhat disheartening to learn that it takes about a week for the assignments to be graded. I'm not sure if others feel as I do but I don't care so much about getting the grade quickly as I do about getting feedback before the next set of assignments needs to be submitted. The grading rubrics provide some information but it's important to know what the instructors are looking for, so that you can adjust your submissions accordingly. Waiting a week for that feedback means that two weeks work of assignments will have been shoveled into a black box before you know if you're really on the right track.

Since I'm griping (again), I should also complain that Blackboard doesn't seem to allow you to see your previous week's DB posting. At least I couldn't find it. The other assignment is there, just the DB link seems to have disappeared.