Gradebook software

[Judy Perry]

Hi Ron,

I don't know if you meant this for me or not, but I'll respond anyways.

Moodle:  I've used it for two, maybe going on three years.  My CS dept.
SysAdmin (since departed, another HUGE story) set it up for me and, as I
was the only faculty using it, gave me total privileges for it.  I have
also contemplated using it for project/other-management purposes but
haven't gotten around to it as yet (just ask me about my FrankenLab...).
I'd investigate what to do with Moodle further if only I weren't utterly
consumed by how to teach a course  in a computer lab that is basically
non-functional.  As I told my students this week, it's like Death by
Groundhog Day.

Ummm, as to IT, definitely a negative.  I don't wish to offend the PC
folks here, but campus IT is without a doubt a controlling bunch of
Microsoft devotees.  To the point of wishing to exterminate any other
platform, especially Macintosh, but, perhaps more ominously, the Unix
systems that run my department's print servers, DNS, mail servers, ftp
server, other network... you name it.  To say nothing of the fact that we
actually still TEACH unix...  IT would like to see all of that gone.  And
it may well happen (see HUGE story above re: departure of main SysAdmin.).

Absolutely, they set the "standards" rather than investigating and
supporting those computer technologies that support individual
disciplines/academic endeavors.

I suppose I should tell you the humorous tale relayed to me by the said
departed SysAdmin about our "new, improved" email network.  Previously, we
ran stuff of the central cyber. Not many users then (80s? early 90s at the
latest).  They got a unix server at some point, but campus email, such as
it was, used, oh, I forget what it was called, but it was Mac-based and
not well-suited for a couple of thousand faculty/staff and  more than
25,000 students.  We needed a new system.

The geeks told campus admin that a decent unix box would do nicely.  IT
consultants, however, told them that NT was the real way to go.  Except
that, after they bought and installed the NT box, apparently it wasn't
enough either, so they bought a second NT system.  Then, to control the
two NT systems, they needed to purchase,  yup, a decent unix server.  One
functional system for the price of three.

Maybe seven years ago I was our department's representative to a
cohort-based system that would have a select group of incoming freshman
all herded through the same courses together for a year or so (like back
in high school).  They decided that the program should be "high-tech" and
I taught one of the two computer-related courses (it was actually the
same course, but one section was taught by CS and the other by MIS).  The
campus' idea of what constituted computer literacy was (1) how to surf
the web; (2) how to use FrontPage; and (3) how to use PowerPoint.  That's
it. And (3) was especially a strictly doctrinal choice inasmuch as a
campus-wide survey had recently been done to study the level of
comptuter literacy that was expected of students, including proficiencies
in which software packages.

Guess the percentage of departments expecting their students to have
facility with PowerPoint -- less than FIVE.  But it became the campus
religion nonetheless.  Doctrine trumps functionality and real need.

Right now, our SysAdmin is a former student who hasn't yet graduated.
He's probably the smartest person we can get at the moment, and with a
small salary.

But I digress with my further misadventures with what he terms our
"ghetto-rigged network" and what I in particular lament as our broken-down
FrankenLab...

Judy

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Ronald Zellner wrote:

> This isn't really a Revolution issue, but since you asked, I have been
> using Moodle for over a year and really like it.  I recently set up a
> second Moodle server and modified it for large project management
> rather than course management.  For my course server I found a grade
> book block that I have added that has really helped in that respect.  I
> still use Revolution stacks for several student projects that are
> evaluated via Moodle as they can both access the same SQL database.
>  From your comment, I'm curious, do you feel the  campus IT or college
> IT to be a positive or negative factor for your development and
> teaching?  I am often frustrated by the attitude that they set the
> conditions for faculty rather than adapting and trying to give them
> what they really want and need to teach effectively.  It is frustrating
> to try to introduce resources such as Revolution as they only want to
> deal with the most common, popular software.  I have a part-time GA and
> we maintain our Moodle servers, Web servers, video servers, & FTP
> servers  just fine as long as they don't interfere and keep the proper
> ports open.
> Ron