So as part of my quest into the social media sphere - the great unknown space where technology and human nature meet - I enrolled in the an Advanced Social Media online course through University of San Francisco. Great course, great learning experience, great instructors for the most part, and wonderful insight through case studies of how this burgeoning use of the internet in all it's glory creates an interconnected web of communications and how that applies and can be utilized by business to a.) connect more intimately with an audience and b.) make money!
Ok so eight weeks of my life (Midnight Feb. 1 through 11:59 p.m. March 28th), poured endlessly into more than 12 hours of video instruction, online lab chat rooms, and eight weekly assessments (or test for the laymen.)
Amid the educational time suck, a few bumps in the road entered my life - loss of job, searching for jobs, beginning of no less than five social media consultation contracts with businesses of all varying degrees. My time was stretched a little thin, and although I began ahead of schedule, I soon feel far behind in my coursework and tests.
Fast forward to the last weekend of class: I locked myself in my home, neglected all social activities besides a family dinner for my cousin who leaves for Costa Rica for the next few months on a teaching gig, and a dinner break with my husband at his work on Sat. Other than that I was all class, all day. And I was running ;). Zooming through each of the remaining weeks with zeal and speed, not leaving any test until I scored a 100%.
By 8:30p.m. I had completed the 7th of eight tests, took a snack break, came back to finish up - taking the 8th test as a practice (you can take them an unlimited amount of times until you accept the grade.) I signed back in and the test was already graded, the class closed and I lost it!
Spent most of the night crying. Although the class is through USF, the course closed promptly at 11:59 EST. not PST.
Called the next to find out that if I wanted to take the final test over I had to pay another $200 dollars to reopen my course. Fine no problem. I just want to finish and get my certificate. Well...
I paid my money, got back in and...
All of my tests were ungraded. The hits just keep on coming, as I've just got off the phone with Tech Support for the school being told that I have to take all of the assessment test over again. Awesome!
Seriously, if technology is here to make our lives easier, ie: me attending a class from a university more than 400 miles away, at any time of the day I choose. Why can they not just click a button and reopen a virtual course that still holds the information of my already completed tests and save me a bunch of wasted time?
They just can't, they said. Just can't. It's a virtual world where everything can be changed, rewired, recovered, reformatted, revisited, retaken... You get my point.
So I began again, from scratch, and scratching my head quizzically at the absurdity of the confines of the very frameworks we set up to make our lives more manageable and less stressful.
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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
