Reflections

Having already attempted a course web page in the previous semester (see 21.1.projects), I had some very specific changes in mind when I choose to attempt a similar assignment in Spring 2004 in my English 12 class. Among these was a better (read, less time-consuming for the instructor) system for the turning in of final drafts, a better design for the course homepage (which would allow for easy navigation from any page back to the homepage as well as between student projects), and modifications to the assignment which would allow for successful and anonymous holistic scoring.

List in hand, I contacted Missy Meeks and explained to her my requests and concerns. She met with me on several occasions, (before, during, and after the unit), led two workshops, and attended another lab. She also had some great suggestions for how we could accomplish the goals outlined above; for example, using AFS Client instead of WS-FTP, something with which I had not previously been familiar. This worked very well with regard to concision of my time, although the workshop for it somewhat unexpectedly took up an entire TR class period. (In response, Missy made a PowerPoint presentation, which should streamline the process considerably for next time.) Besides attending the workshop, all that was required of me was to give all my students editing privileges on the course space. (Then I simply removed them all as editors after their final deadline had passed.)

Missy also created some templates from which I was able to choose which addressed my concerns about site navigation—the basic format of which is used for the course homepage and almost all the student pages. The difference (in ease of navigation between 21.1.projects and 12.1.diseases) is momentous, wonderful, cannot-say-enough-nice-things-about-how-easy-it-made-my-life.

There were, of course, some problems. For one thing, there is an inherent contradiction in the rhetoric of web composition (which demands accountability) and holistic scoring (which requires anonymity), which I had not fully considered before attempting the project. (I have included an explanation detailing the holistic scoring experience on the web page, see 12.1.diseases for more information.) In addition, simply substituting a web page for the 4-5 page paper that would normally constitute the final project for the natural sciences unit, was less successful than I had hoped. In retrospect, without realizing it, I had asked students to make a giant leap in perspective between Feeder 2 and Unit Project 1—to go from expert to general public. As it’s irresponsible to have students pretending to be experts in such a public forum, we basically abandoned that perspective mid-unit, which created problems, particularly with aligning to the rubric. In the future, a different second feeder assignment (perhaps focused on evaluating web sites) might be more helpful.