If distance education was Zork

Acephalous's DISTANCE LEARNING! is a notional Zork-like game that illustrates the daily round of a distance education instructor:

You are sitting at your desk with a cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.

> drink coffee

All is right with the world again.

> grade assignments

You have graded twenty-three assignments. You are sitting at your desk with a half-finished cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.

> drink more coffee

You curse the law of diminishing returns.

> grade assignments

You have graded twenty-three assignments. You are sitting at your desk with an empty cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.

> no all done

There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.

DISTANCE LEARNING! (via Uncertain Principles)

[#1 posted by busse, September 10, 2009 5:34 AM]

heh, when I saw this headline come across the twitter stream, I thought maybe we'd get a retrospective on MicroMUSE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroMuse

However, that post is pretty funny.

[#2 posted by phisrow, September 10, 2009 5:45 AM]

>Fuck it. All assignments are now multiple choice.

Scantron, eh? You uncaring sellout!

[#3 posted by Felton, September 10, 2009 5:46 AM]

Your coffee is pitch black. It is likely to be drunk by a grue.

[#4 posted by Tdawwg, September 10, 2009 6:58 AM]

There are twenty-three assignments that need grading. Your next of kin have been notified.

[#5 posted by Anonymous, September 10, 2009 7:24 AM]

Hello Sailor!

[#6 posted by JoshuaZ, September 10, 2009 7:52 AM]

There was a similar more joke a while back about working as a TA:

http://eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com/176383.html?nc=195

[#7 posted by Anonymous, September 10, 2009 10:06 AM]

I can confirm that accepting emailed assignments is a bad if somewhat ecologically responsible idea. It is a terrible terrible terrible idea if your school has outsourced their email to microsoftonline and disabled forwarding, and you don't run Windows at home. Really, don't do this again.

[#8 posted by aelfscine, September 10, 2009 11:07 AM]

Feh, maybe this is the case for an actual university that offers online courses. When I worked at University of Phoenix, I took one of their courses (for free, thank Cthulhu) and all the "prof" did in there was write 'Good job!' on everything and give no feedback. Between that and periodically horking up a pre-written question for the discussion forums, he could easily have been a robot, a monkey, or a raving drunk.

[#9 posted by MadMolecule, September 10, 2009 1:09 PM]

If distance education were Zork.

[#10 posted by Tdawwg, September 10, 2009 1:42 PM]

all the "prof" did in there was write 'Good job!' on everything and give no feedback. Between that and periodically horking up a pre-written question for the discussion forums, he could easily have been a robot, a monkey, or a raving drunk.

Or an overworked, non-tenure-track adjunct, working several other teaching jobs, trying to advance their research and career, and profoundly disincentivized by both higher education's incredibly cynical treatment of its nontenured employees, and the extraordinarily entitled horde of digital-age illiterates passing themselves off as students. You seem to have come out OK, though!

[#11 posted by Anonymous, September 10, 2009 2:12 PM]

For this prof who teaches online and face-to-face, it's more like:

go to traditional class
go to meeting
check online class
beat head on desk
class
meeting
online
beat

People who can't read or write or use a computer should not be taking online classes. Sigh.

And how was your day?

(captcha says "and campuses" - what is it trying to tell me?????)

[#12 posted by Anonymous, September 14, 2009 4:21 AM]

Bad Coffee. You have Dysentery.