Monday, January 05, 2004

The nitty-gritty of marking. Ken Tompkins on North by Northwest explains his still evolving process for digitally responding to student writing. It's a realistic picture, including the frustrations that all teachers can expect to encounter. "What started out as a way to eliminate physical papers, to use the speed and ease of the web and to take advantage of the technology they all have access to has become a nightmare.'' [ebnWL News] I too have tried to have students email me their write-ups from the first year clinical diagnosis course I teach.  Fearing the incompatibilities and difficulty associated with using MS Word and the "Track Changes" function (which I think is very useful when used appropriately), I just printed out whatever came to me.  I figured that I'd at least have a digital and paper record of everything sent to me (since I'm not very good at logging in assignments).  Even this simple task was apparently too much - the formats!  the incompatibilities!  the vast amounts of meaningless gobbledy-gook included in emails because my email program couldn't figure out the difference between an attachment and a really long, comic page swear word. One day, we'll agree on a common standard...if only for individual interpreters that will take whatever's sent to us and deliver it in the way WE like it... 10:08:00 PM