Blackboard Gradebook Sucks
I hate blackboard. I really, really hate blackboard. But it’s better than nothing. Anyone else has this sort of love/hate relationship with the world’s worst course management system?
What is pissing me off about Blackboard today? It’s the grade book feature. My class size is 26, but when I open the blackboard Gradebook panel I see this:
What does this mean? It means that someone at blackboard decided that displaying 25 students per page is optimal. At MSU most classes have less than 30 students. This means that every time we go to look at the grade book we will see only the first 25 students and then have to switch page to see the remaining 2 or 3:
This would be fine, if there was a way to change the number of users per page. But there isn’t. And if there is, please correct me and show me how to change it.
And this is just one of the few of my gripes about blackboard. There are many more. Don’t get me started on the easy to apply, exploits that are never patched or the stupidity of their unstructured Digital Dropbox concept. What’s wrong with having every single homework assignment going into a single chronological, unstructured list - right?
Who else hates blackboard?
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September 11th, 2007 at 1:33 pm (6162) [Quote]
Ah, memories
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 3:47 pm (6163) [Quote]
Yeah.. But I get to deal with all this fun stuff once again.
Sigh…
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 7:07 pm (6164) [Quote]
This is true, but I still have to work with it at grad school.
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 9:50 pm (6166) [Quote]
Just kick out one of your students. Not only will you then get the optimal number of 25, but you’ll also gain a rep for being a hardarse who’s not to be messed with. :p
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 9:57 pm (6167) [Quote]
@Zewrestler - oh man, you’d thing that there would be other alternatives out there. Sigh…
@varci - LOL, this is the same thing that Dr. Robila told me - you can always make someone drop a class.
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 10:52 pm (6168) [Quote]
I really enjoy Blackboard for it’s inconvenience, lack of real security, and it’s ability to pick and choose which emails it will send or not.
OT, but here is a link to the scene of The Office I was telling you about:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=h-f3q6C-8OE
Thanks for helping me out today.
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 10:59 pm (6169) [Quote]
No problem. If you have any questions let me know.
The Office is one of those shows that I keep hearing about that I always plan to watch but never actually do.
Posted usingSeptember 11th, 2007 at 11:06 pm (6170) [Quote]
If you had Netflix, you’d be able to watch the first 2 seasons instantly on your computer. I love these anti-spam blocking words that I have to type to comment on your page.
My favorite one of all time was ‘foobar.’
Posted usingSeptember 14th, 2007 at 9:09 pm (6208) [Quote]
Love/hate relationship? What the hell is there to love about it, other than the workout your lungs get from screaming at it? Things work better by plain old email for sending out the notices and documents. 15 minutes invested at the beginning of the semester in entering email addresses into Outlook, and I’m done. Anyone wants their grades early, they email me and I reply. You don’t need it for Turnitin.com, either. Want a dialogue with your students? Start a blog. Kick the stupid evil scumbag malware off your computer and out of your life.
Posted usingSeptember 14th, 2007 at 10:12 pm (6210) [Quote]
You know - you are right. The main benefits are:
- Students already know how to use it
- Roughly 90% of the professors in the department use it (and I’m guessing the ratio might be similar for the whole school).
This provides a centralized point for posting class related announcements, lecture notes and assignments. They will get your announcements, while they are checking information for their other classes.
Making them visit additional websites is like pulling teeth. If I taught a high level class I’d definitely consider a blog and more personal approach as people who take these classes are generally interested in the subject. But 100 level, required courses mean that you generally get a lot of kids who just want a passing grade, and will go to great lengths to to as little work for the class as possible.
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