Ideas from Evernote

This page from blogger Michael Hyatt shows how important organizational skills are for writing. He's using Evernote (a very nifty application), but the principles are applicable to writing academic essays, too.

First papers

I've begun picking up the first set of essays for review. I'll admit this is not my favorite part of teaching. It's as difficult for me to comment on someone else's text as it is for my students to do peer reviews. And I must do it dozens of times more than they do.

The best part of essay review is that I invariably learn something from at least one or two who are bringing new ideas into my view. I'll never forget how my views about hot dogs were changed by one student's diligent research into what really goes into them. And the essay about the economics of prostitution written mostly in second person -- and therefore calling ME a prostitute throughout -- was one of my favorite. That student was quite chagrined to realize the effect of second-person narration.

Hopefully there will be comments to draw from many of the essays this term, as well as many new pathways that require my attention. We've only been together a couple weeks, but already these four classes seem filled with interesting, engaging personalities. I'm a lucky teacher.

Week 1 - COS E1

Wow! The first week went so much better than it did last term. There were a couple of big snafus -- Bb dumped almost all student users and Banner wasn't accepting add codes -- but even so it was pretty good. I'm chalking it up to better preparation on my part this term. Unlike previously when I had waited until classes started to set up email groups, etc., this time I did it a week early. So, when the technoworld crashed, I still had all the info needed to keep in touch with students.

The second best thing was the way the students came in this time. There are still questions, but it appears students read the files (for the most part) and because of their efforts, things went pretty smoothly -- even though I asked them to create personal blogs for their reflective writing.

I think this is going to be an excellent group to work with. :)

E1 Update

Well, after a really shaky start -- what with add codes not working and Blackboard having a major malfunction -- we seem to finally be on track. It's good to see so many getting 1a done. It's the orientation quiz and critical to staying in the class. Every class has a "first session", and the orientation quiz is mine, so to speak.

I'm a little surprised, though, that the scores are relatively low so far. After all, the assignment listed exactly which files were used to create the test, and students were told they could have any of those files available to look up answers. I would have expected everyone to earn very near 100%. Lesson learned.