Smart Thinking

At the beginning of the semester, I printed out hard copies of the three syllabuses that were available online (my Intro to Counseling Skills did not have one posted, we got it in class). It's partly due to my desire to have something to mark up, to show progress, that I'm completing something. Mostly, I do it because I know there will be times when I'd like to review what I need to do when I know I'll be away from a computer. Like for instance, while I sit in a doctor's office, waiting for an appointment.

The ingrained need to have a paper syllabus, like the old days, is one that seems to have served me in good stead this semester. One instructor had a syllabus that was posted by the former instructor, but she then wiped it off, preferring to only post two assignments at a time. Interesting note: they match up with what I have, if not the order that they were assigned by the previous teacher.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a power outage on the main USF campus that knocked out the generators that run the computer system servers. Power came back on, but one of the servers kept failing the tests to bring it online. Thus, the system was offline until two hours ago.

One class had an assignment due at midnight last night, another has a project due during class tonight. I knew the reading required for the one due at midnight, but not the specific directions tied to Chapter five. Meanwhile, tonight's class? The power outage occurred while doing the observations for the project.

Recently, my classmate who is in both on campus classes friended me on Facebook. She pinged me in chat last night to ask what we had to do for tonight's class. I thought the assignment was more in depth (there are two parts to this project, and they are the foundation for our APA style paper early next month). Aha! I think I've got the directions that were posted on Blackboard.

I did.

Sure enough, Jessica was right-we only had to write a brief summary, but saving a copy of the information? It saved me hours of work!

As for the other class? When I awoke this morning, the servers were back up-and the midnight assignment was wiped off the Blackboard. It's not a surprise, because the instructor has set up our pages to wipe off an assignment as soon as 12:01 on the due date arrives. Several of my classmates sent emails out to the entire class, hoping that someone, anyone, would have submitted theirs early-and could provide directions.

I pulled out my copy of the syllabus and realized that it didn't give the specific instructions to any assignments. That said, I then realized (at 5am, mind you, not my best time of day!) that I had made a Word document of all the assignments. They're out of order, but this instructor is giving us the same things to do, just in a different order. As I reviewed the instructions for Chapter 5, it was obvious that luck was with me, for this seems to be the case once again.

Sweet.

It's amazing how a need for the old school ways have come in handy in the age of technology...




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