Thursday, June 05, 2008

A second reality check

Imagine that you have an online class and that all but one person is having no trouble with finding the site, finding the materials, completing the work, and so forth.

Imagine, too, that you have multiple e-mail addresses but that you have instructed your class (via the syllabus, Blackboard, e-mail messages to them, announcements, and so forth) to use one specific e-mail address.

What are the odds that the same person who couldn't see that there are writing assignments in the class if they were written on the side of a barn door has managed to sleuth out your least-used, most-obscure e-mail address, the one you rarely check, and has sent you multiple messages complaining that he or she can't understand how to access the course materials?

a) Nah, couldn't happen.
b) Infinitesimal.
c) A hundred percent.

You'll never guess this one in a million years.

3 comments:

The_Myth said...

If s/he isn't e-mailing your school e-address, then s/he is not really e-mailing is s/he?

Same goes for whatever contact point you have on the online syllabus, which you know s/he has access to because s/he posted to the discussion board.

Unless, of course, you are not using your official school e-mail address, which is a bad, bad thing to do... You need to at least set up a mail forwarding process then.

Oh, and if this rarely-used e-mail address actually took sleuthing to uncover, then little Snowflake should have had no trouble using Blackboard. Or finding your regularly used e-mail address. Ot calling tech support for help.

A said...

I'm guessing... that they asked the wrong person for our email address and that's how they got the wrong one.

We had this same problem at uni during my last degree. Stay strong, be patient, email screen shots if you have to. They will eventually figure it out.

undine said...

It's the official address that I gave them that I'm using for class. I did email him/her back to invoke those magic words "as it says on the syllabus" when mentioning the correct email address to use.