Wednesday, February 14, 2007
2nd Reflection
So, today is the day that Westminster had a "delay". We all know it really wasn't a delay, but we do know that today there were a lot of classes cancelled. After I woke up and figured out that the email meant that only 8:10 classes were cancelled, I got ready and went to my 9:20 class. After unsuccessfully jumping over a snowbank and getting the bottom of my pants rather wet, I got to class to find that my professor was MIA. We waited for a while, and when she never showed, our class left. I was really frustrated. I mean, why didn't she send an email or call the secretary and have her send an email? I couldn't understand how my professor couldn't utilize such an easy tool like email to let us know that she wasn't coming to class. (Just for the record, after being frustrated for a while I did feel bad that maybe she was really sick or that something is wrong... I'm not a totally bad person.) Then I had the thought that prompted me to write this reflection. Before the times when email was used, students in my position would have walked to class, seen a note, and walked back to their room. They would not have gotten upset that the teacher forgot to email or that they had to walk a few yards in the cold to find out class wasn't happening. They simply would have been thankful for an extra hour of sleep when they got back to their rooms. Why, then, did I get frustrated that nobody communicated to me that class wasn't happening today? Is CMC taking over my life? Why couldn't I just be happy with not having class? It's almost as if someone cannot communicate with me through FtF communication, I expect it to happen via CMC. What was it like before CMC? Do other people think the same way I do?
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4 comments:
I do feel the same way you do! You are right, before CMC people would have been contacted by word of mouth or a sign on the door saying that class was canceled. Now, I do get frustrated because I had to walk a few feet to see that class was canceled! I think it's because we depend on CMC for these kind of problems. It's just the way it works now, your not a bad person because of it, we all do it because we rely on this technology to get by.
Last year I had an oral french final on a snowy day. I spent all morning studying, bundled up, and hiked over to class in the snow. There I found a note on the door. My professor couldn't make it to class because of the weather, the final was cancelled. After my immediate feeling of relief I was rather frustrated. I had just spent my whole day studying for something that wasn't going to happen. Then I realized I never checked my email. A message had been sent 4 hours earlier. Now I never go to class without checking my email first.
That's funny, I didn't even read your blog before I wrote mine and they both are on the same topic. However I didn't even think about how CMC might be taking over my life because of relying on it to see if class was canceled or not. I guess I am depending on it too much. But really, Isn't it just as easy to write an e-mail and send it then to call your secretary or whatever and tell them to put a note on the door?
I feel the same way you do about the CMC. Before e-mail, I would have to drive 40 minutes to campus just to find out that class was not happening. CMC makes our life much easier at times, but then often times complicates things as well. E-mails make life much easier for both the students and the professor, that is, if they can take advantage of it.
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