Ferdinand Saussure (1857-1913), University of Geneva, & an Elluminate session at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010

The screen capture in the right frame is from one of my courses in this, my final semester before graduation.   It took the class two whole weeks to get used to the system and actually begin class (okay, it’s ART 100), but the ~50-pupil classroom is now much more active in the general chatroom than any real-life course that I have ever attended.  Sure, there is a small amount of trolling in the chat room and on the whiteboard, but those behaviors can be curbed by course rules, professor attitude, and program settings.

If you’re into this sort of thing, you may want to read Why Learning from PowerPoint Lectures is Frustrating and I Prefer My Professor’s Illegible Handwriting To Your PowerPoint Presentation, with which I agree much of the time.  (Also, nice theme selection, Carolyn.)  It is important to remember that new technologies are just new options, that they should be used when they are the right tool, and that they should generally be used properly–hacking is okay but should not be necessary.