If distance education was Zork

Acephalous's DISTANCE LEARNING! is a notional Zork-like game that illustrates the daily round of a distance education instructor:

You are sitting at your desk with a cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.
> drink coffee
All is right with the world again.
> grade assignments
You have graded twenty-three assignments. You are sitting at your desk with a half-finished cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.
> drink more coffee
You curse the law of diminishing returns.
> grade assignments
You have graded twenty-three assignments. You are sitting at your desk with an empty cup of coffee, checking your online course webpage. There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.
> no all done
There are twenty-three assignments that need grading.

DISTANCE LEARNING! (via Uncertain Principles)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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busse

heh, when I saw this headline come across the twitter stream, I thought maybe we’d get a retrospective on MicroMUSE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroMuse

However, that post is pretty funny.
phisrow

>Fuck it. All assignments are now multiple choice.

Scantron, eh? You uncaring sellout!
Felton

Your coffee is pitch black. It is likely to be drunk by a grue.
aelfscine

Feh, maybe this is the case for an actual university that offers online courses. When I worked at University of Phoenix, I took one of their courses (for free, thank Cthulhu) and all the “prof” did in there was write ‘Good job!’ on everything and give no feedback. Between that and periodically horking up a pre-written question for the discussion forums, he could easily have been a robot, a monkey, or a raving drunk.
Tdawwg

There are twenty-three assignments that need grading. Your next of kin have been notified.
Anonymous

Hello Sailor!
MadMolecule

If distance education were Zork.
JoshuaZ

There was a similar more joke a while back about working as a TA:

http://eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com/176383.html?nc=195
Tdawwg

all the “prof” did in there was write ‘Good job!’ on everything and give no feedback. Between that and periodically horking up a pre-written question for the discussion forums, he could easily have been a robot, a monkey, or a raving drunk.

Or an overworked, non-tenure-track adjunct, working several other teaching jobs, trying to advance their research and career, and profoundly disincentivized by both higher education’s incredibly cynical treatment of its nontenured employees, and the extraordinarily entitled horde of digital-age illiterates passing themselves off as students. You seem to have come out OK, though!
Anonymous

For this prof who teaches online and face-to-face, it’s more like:

go to traditional class
go to meeting
check online class
beat head on desk
class
meeting
online
beat

People who can’t read or write or use a computer should not be taking online classes. Sigh.

And how was your day?

(captcha says “and campuses” – what is it trying to tell me?????)
Anonymous

Bad Coffee. You have Dysentery.
Anonymous

I can confirm that accepting emailed assignments is a bad if somewhat ecologically responsible idea. It is a terrible terrible terrible idea if your school has outsourced their email to microsoftonline and disabled forwarding, and you don’t run Windows at home. Really, don’t do this again.