Major University of the People annoyance
Hey Readers!
Another week has begun at University of the People and after a horrible last week, I was expecting this week to be better but I am not so sure that is going to happen. The work load doesn't seem so bad this week but something that was a minor annoyance before has now turned into a major annoyance.
Why am I so annoyed? I am annoyed at the school's lack of consistency and software bias. A couple of weeks ago, we were given an introduction to the desktop. Normally I would say this is fine despite the fact that I don't need to know how to click the start button but what really annoyed me is that the walk-through was for Windows XP and XP only. From the discussions that have taken place among the students, there don't seem to be too many of them on XP anymore. Some, like myself are on Windows 7, some are on Vista, a few are on a Mac and many are on Linux. A number of students, myself included, are irked that the school seems to be showing favoritism to an 8 year old, insecure operating system instead of something even halfway current not to mention the fact that many are on Linux because they can't afford a license for Windows and are at a disadvantage because of it. So much for the school being free and open to everybody no matter their circumstance as long as they have Internet and know English.
If this was just a one time thing, I would be willing to overlook it but this week it has gotten much worse. Now, we have the problem of lack of consistency. In this week's learning guide (our reading material for the week), we are told how to do certain tasks in Microsoft Word 2003 and OpenOffice Writer. Again, I have my current software complaint but I am also irked that Google Docs, which is what I use, is completely ignored. If that wasn't bad enough, part of our work for the week, our discussion, requires Office 2007. Huh?! Why would you tell us how to use Word 2003 and Writer, only to make us talk about features of a completely different program and only that program? This is insane! How are those of us who use Google Docs or OpenOffice Writer supposed to participate in the discussion (which is for a grade) if we don't have Office 2007? I have multiple copies of Office 2007, but that isn't the point. It is not my preferred environment although I do enjoy it, but many people can't afford to have several different word processors just because a school can't make up its mind as to what it thinks we should be using.
Make up your mind University of the People!!! I recommend making the system where everybody can learn equally regardless of their software and stop using old software or playing guess what word processor you need next.
Burned out on school
Hey everybody!
Well, it only took about 6 weeks, but I am already burned out on school. I am not sure of the exact reason why, but I think it is a combination of several things. Between spending more hours than expected on school work (I basically have next to no free time anymore), the horrible interface we are forced to use, the lack of good English skills by many of the students and bizarre deadlines, I am getting so sick of things that It is everything I can muster just to do my homework anymore. I still greatly believe in the mission of the school but at this point, I want a break.
Like many people, I have never enjoyed school. Whether it was middle school, high school or college, I have never enjoyed school like some do. I love to learn but I don't like being forced to learn in an educational environment. I prefer to be free to learn whatever I want in as much depth as I want and find beneficial at my own pace, not that dictated by somebody else. If I am going to retain anything that I learn, I have to be able to enjoy learning and I have never been able to do that in school. When I was going to college at Neumont University, I enjoyed it but that was largely because of the other people that I got to interact with rather than the actual learning which I struggled with. With University of the People, I fell very alone and disconnected despite the fact that it is supposed to be a school based around the idea of social networking. There is no fun in something like that and it makes it very hard to get motivated. Hopefully something will change so that I can get motivated but at this point I just want a vacation.
What do you do when you need to get motivated to work on something like school? I am open to any suggestions I can get at this point.
University of the People Week 4 thoughts
Hey readers!
I thought I should give you guys a quick update on how things are going with my schooling at University of the People.
Things seem to be improving and others seem to be going nowhere fast. It took the school about a week after our discussion on the learning environment to acknowledge our displeasure with many aspects of it and our suggestions on how to change things. Supposedly things are in the works but other than them finally getting the forums working as they should, there is no indication that anything is happening other than the fact that they say there is.
I am liking the length of the homework assignments although the deadlines that we have to go by are very strange and I don't think they work that well for a global school. They also don't seem to care about the fact that nobody sees a purpose in having a learning journal and a really crappy one at that. They seem to be sticking to their misguided ideas and keep reminding us that if we don't use it, our grade will be affected by it. They can keep saying that all they want but it wont make me care any more than I did in the first place which is not at all. I still refuse to use it. My English class seems to require us to use it for the assignment this week. I am torn between wanting to complete my assignment and hold on to my boycott of the learning journal. I am still not sure what I am going to do but I suppose I better decide soon since the assignment is due tomorrow.
Maybe I am not talking to as many foreigners on there as normal but I haven't noticed the lack of English skills this week as much as in weeks past. That said, it seems that likely because of them, many people don't seem to be understanding the assignments and how to do them so when I grade them, I have to really mark them down because they didn't do what was asked. I hate doing that because they don't understand the question but the school was very clear about knowing English when they got into the school so I can't say I feel too bad for them when they get bad grades because they don't understand enough English to do their assignments as required by the school.
I am also slightly annoyed at the fact that they are teaching the basics of the desktop with XP. XP is old and about to die, it should not be used as an example in a learning environment. If you are going to use Windows, use Vista or even Windows 7. There have also been a number of other people with issues with this because they use Linux instead of Windows. I agree with them that it should be taught in more than one operating environment and I fully support their desire to have some of the material compatible with their systems as I use Linux as well on occasion.
Oh, and the calendar they use is crap! They need to use Google Calender.
That is all of my thoughts for this week on my experience at University of the People. More next week.
-pcnerd37
University of the People Week 2 thoughts
Hey everybody!
I thought I should give my thoughts about week 2 of University of the People, so here it goes!
Lets start off with what I find really annoying shall we? This week is the first week of doing peer assessments which I am fine with but I am still frustrated with the lack of proper English skills that many of the students have. When I grade the assignments of several other students, I often end up having to interpret what they are trying to say because of missing words in their typing, poor punctuation skills and problems with people copying and pasting their answers from various word processors which can put in a bunch of strange style information and make things look really strange. The other problem I have with the peer assessments is the system itself. When you go to grade an assignment, the screen is split between the grading sheet on top and the assignment on the bottom which would probably be OK except for some very annoying bugs such as after you have finished and click a link within the page, it just goes to the link in the top half of the page and the submission stays on the bottom half of the page. In order to get where you are going and have it show up properly, you must open the link in a new tab or refresh the page completely or something stupid that I shouldn't have to do. The language used on the system can also be confusing at times too and some questions have no relevancy to the submission which makes grading even harder.
I also still find the whole journal thing completely retarded and the journal system is by far the worst I have ever seen. Apparently people don't remember it or don't like it either because the teachers have put up reminders telling people to make submissions in them as it is part of our final grade because it allows teachers to track our progress and such. Dear teachers, if you want to track my progress and know what I am thinking, read this blog and listen to my podcast as I do not want to use your horrible journal system.
Now that the ranting is over, lets talk about the good and just plain interesting. I find it rather interesting that besides the discussion forum which we are required to participate in, there are two other forums that are for the class, one of which is without the teacher and one is with. One would think that assignment related stuff would stay in the one with the teacher and the other one without the teacher would have a huge array of topics but it seems to stay on the topic of school which I find rather curious. I will have to try to change that this week. It is good to see a decent bit of participation in the forums, even if some of them are hard to understand due to the fact that English is not the first language of many of the students. As for the good, the workload has picked up now that people are starting to get familiar with the system which is good although I am not sure how much I am really getting out of the work. The intro to online learning class I learn stuff from but that is just because it is getting me familiar with the system and such but I am not sure what I am learning from the English composition class. It doesn't feel so much like there is teaching going on so much as read this and do this assignment. I guess I am used to this because that was how my English classes were all through high school, almost entirely busy work and no real teaching or learning. Hopefully that will change but I am used to it if it doesn't.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for week 2. I will post my thoughts for week 3 around the middle of next week since new school weeks start on Thursday which I still find very strange.
University of the People first impressions
Hey everybody!
I began classes at the new University of the People on Thursday and I thought I would give some first impressions based on what I have seen so far. To start, it isn't always easy to understand what people have to say because many of them are from countries all over the world who don't have English as their first language. Most of the time I can figure out what they are trying to say but it isn't easy. Considering good English skills were required to attend the school and an essay written in English to get accepted, I am kind of surprised at how poorly some write it.
The user interface for students isn't bad but it could be better. Having 3 different message boards with various scope but similar names is kind of confusing. It would be nice if they used some more user friendly message board software anyway but for a school that is just starting out, I suppose I can't be too picky. It would be nice to know which users are students and which are instructors and staff without them having to say so though.
This week has seemed a bit easy but I suppose that is to be expected for the first week of classes and one class that is an introduction to the online learning environment. Honestly, I could do with much more than 2 classes since I could probably accomplish a weeks worth of work in a couple of hours. Hopefully the work load picks up in the coming weeks. Speaking of the workload, apparently we are expected to keep some sort of journal about the school work that we do and our thoughts about it and stuff. Personally, I find the idea kind of stupid. If I want to write down my thoughts and stuff, that is what this blog is for. I think it is even more dumb that it is graded by teachers.
So far I can't speak too highly of the school but things are just getting started and we are still in the get to know you phase so hopefully in the next week or two things will pick up. I think this school has a lot of promise and I hope it delivers on that promise.
-pcnerd37
My return to blogging…and school!
Hey everybody!
Sorry it has been so many months since I have blogged on here! After Battlestar Galactica ended, I stopped blogging here for some reason and focused my writing skills on the Global Geek News Blog and the awesome tech news site TechVi.com. I have decided to focus more on this blog because some exciting things are starting to happen, mainly I am going back to school starting today!
For those who haven't heard, I am one of the few students out of thousands of applicants to get into the brand new online school University of the People. I am looking to finish getting my Computer Science degree after having been out of school for just over 2 years. Just a quick little bit about the school, it is a tuition free institution that is open to anybody around the globe that speaks English and it is focused on the social networking angle of education. Right now it is only for those seeking a computer science degree or a business degree but they look to expand in the future. Anyway, since they are a new school who is opening its doors for the first time today and is very different from any school ever created, I am going to blog every bit of my experience on here. I don't know if I will have daily updates about it, but I expect to have some updates at least once or twice a week among everything else that I plan on blogging about.
Speaking of things I plan on blogging about, I have decided that I am going to shift the focus of this blog slightly and make it about everything that is on my mind that doesn't fit anywhere else that I write. Everything from a cool YouTube video I have seen to my rants about the idiot construction workers that make my commute a nightmare, I am going to be putting it on here. Some posts will be long, some will be short but I want this to be an uncensored place where I can put everything that is going on with me and my thoughts about the world around me. I can't promise I will post everyday because my life is already hectic as it is without school, but I will do my best. I am hoping to juggle all of my current projects and hobbies while going back to school but I don't know just how successful I will be with that.
Since I am very tired and need to go to bed, I will save some updates on things like my podcasts until the next post which should come sometime in the next 24 hours. There is a lot to talk about and catch everybody up on so stay tuned! One last thing, although I do know that the BSG movie, The Plan will be out on DVD before it airs on TV, I still plan on live blogging the tv airing for those who are still interested since I promised to do it when the show ended earlier this year.
I am sick of Cisco
As I have mentioned on here before, I am working on getting my Cisco CCNA cert. I'm starting to give up on that idea even though I have already paid for the classes. I have been suffering major Cisco burnout since the third semester and haven't even gone to class so far this fourth semester, and I assume finals week is two weeks away.
I no longer care about this stuff and seem to be having a hard time retaining the information. As of right now, I have no plans to get my cert even if I manage to pass the class. While I'm sure most of the information is valid, I don't think its something I am interested in anymore. The large number of mistakes and non working e-labs in the curriculum have also caused much frustration with the course.
My last issue with the course is that the material is not presented in a consistent manner. Some of the material feels rushed and not presented in an easy to understand manner, while other information feels more like useless background information rather than important facts.
I'm at a point where I don't know if I should rush like mad to try to finish the class, or say screw it and forget about it.
-pcnerd37
Im slowly becoming productive again
My Cisco CCNA Practical final is now done and out of the way. Now I can start the new semester of Cisco CCNA. While the final went well, we never could get the OSPF authentication working right.
With that finished, my productivity has started to rise again. I did the first Global Geek News blog in a while. Hopefully I will start posting on that blog daily or close to it. So far the first new article seems to be getting some decent traction. Its called "Whats on your desktop?" As of this post, it currently has 8 diggs. Please Digg it!
Podcasts should pick back up tomorrow. I am trying to find a balance of blogging and podcasting that I can maintain without much hassle.
I just received an email saying that my new Plantronics .Audio 90 has shipped. I was going to go with the 750, but these are what I have used for a long time and they were on clearance, so I wanted to get another pair while I still could. Hopefully when that gets here, I will get a new Global Geek News podcast up. I dont use that headset for Geek News Daily, so it should have no effect on recording it.
The Geek Podcasting Network is almost ready to go and will be up by the end of the week. A month late is better than never I guess.
More tomorrow!
-pcnerd37
Things to start picking back up this week
Greetings everybody!
I am sorry for not posting on any of my blogs or podcasts in the past week. Things have been a tad busier than usual. After today, things should calm down and get back to normal.
That said, I am really wishing I had gone to SXSW. From what I have read on Twitter, it seems to be tons of fun. I really need to try to go to some conferences other than sci-fi conventions.
I have to retake my Cisco practical final today. I started to take it on Wednesday, but the switches and routers weren't preconfigured as they were supposed to be, so I have to take it again tonight. I still have to do the setup stuff myself, but I have a little more time tonight as I had to leave early on Wednesday for a family event. I should have had time to complete it on Wednesday had things been setup the way they should have. I am trying not to dwell on it as it does no good. I am lacking in time tonight, but now that I know more of what to expect, I should be able to get things done in time.
Expect a blog post on the Global Geek News blog today and I will likely spend the rest of the day before class trying to get my Geek Podcasting Network website finished.
Back tomorrow!
-pcnerd37
Podcasts have resumed again!
After taking a two week break, I have resumed podcasting. A new Geek News Daily podcast is up! The prep is also done for a Global Geek News podcast. I don't know when this week it will be recorded or who will be on the show, but I hope to have it out before the end of the month and then weekly after that.
On a related note, I plan to move the Global Geek News blog off of blogger, to a wordpress blog on the website. This will allow for me to do more with the blog and should get me to blog almost daily as I had always planned.
Speaking of getting stuff done, the Geek Podcasting Network is a bit behind schedule. Depending on my free time, I will try to get it ready to go up by the end of the week. Expect a big post here when it goes up!
Now that all of that stuff is out of the way, I must say I am very excited that one of my best friends is coming home this week after spending a year in Iraq! I cant wait to see him and go play a round of golf later this week or early next week. I took the online portion of my Cisco CCNA final tonight. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I will still end up with a B in the class for this semester. The next semester starts next week.
Thats it for tonight. I shall blog again tomorrow! Don't forget to follow me on twitter!
-pcnerd37