I notice you link to my web
site on China's One-Child Policy. This is alright with me and indeed,
somewhat flattering, for a second-year university student. I was wondering
how old this list of assignments was (did you teach this class this year?)
and what sort of feedback your students gave you about my site, because I
would be interested in hearing what they have to say (I strongly believe in
the benefits of constructive criticism). Anyway, I was just curious about
your link to my web site and how you used it in your class. Thanks for
giving my web site a few more hits!
Thanks,
Jesse
Jesse Zink
Acadia University
Wolfville, NS CANADA
Hey, Jesse
You may not know that I used to teach at Acadia (1973-1990)... and I found your page when I was looking for ways to get my students in a course on Anthropology of East Asia here at Washington & Lee to focus better on the projects they are working on --and should finish in the next couple of days. The class page is at http://home.wlu.edu/~blackmerh/eas/anth230.html and (as you can imagine) is a bit uneven, some better than others and some things (of mine and theirs) less complete than I could wish. You can see what they said on their individual log pages, which will be linked under the 'Dramatis Personae' heading on the course page. In general I think they were quite favourably impressed with your page, and it was for me a very good way to get them to do some self-evaluation.
Many thanks for your (inadvertent) contribution to my class!
-- Hugh Blackmer
Hello Dr. Blackmer,
Well, it's definitely comforting to know that you taught at Acadia at one
point. I developed this site as an assignment for Dr. Malcolm Grieve. I
don't know if that name rings any bells for you. You may or may not know
that Acadia is know fully wired with the Acadia Advantage. Every student is
issued a laptop computer. This is why Dr. Grieve can assign a project like
this. This seems to be what you are doing with your students, although from
what I can gather you are conducting this in a computer lab setting.
However, you are still to be commended for introducing this much use of
technology in your classrooms.
I found the comments from your students very interesting and helpful. To
clear up any confusion, I am definitely a male student, although your
students are not the first to make this mistake. My assignment does sound
different from what you are assigning your students. The object was to
provide an overview of the issue for the rest of my classmates and some
useful links to other web resources. It sounds as if you are doing something
more complex and challenging with your students, involving book research,
which my assignment did not involve.. I did take the time to learn HTML, the
language used to design web sites. I definitely recommend it your students
(well, maybe not right at the end of the semester). It provides much more
versatility than any What You See Is What You Get web design tool. That is
how I did some of things with my web site that your students commended. And
if I have any piece of advice for your students, it would be to make your
sites easy to navigate and ensure that there is a logical progression from
one page to another.
Thanks for an interesting experience and an opportunity to receive some good
constructive criticism. I may have to revise this site now!
Toodles,
Jesse