Oh, you all were talking on the discussion boards??

My teacher suddenly appeared yesterday. I think someone complained to her or asked if she was still alive or if the class was still running because she sent us an email explaining she is new to this whole "online" teaching thing.

Um. Okay.

Then she said she didn't realize we were talking to each other on the discussion boards, and she was confused why no one had emailed her with questions - and now she knows!

Um. Yeah.

She populated the assignment calendar to the end of the class, including when our mid-term and final are due. Since we pretty much wasted the first three weeks, and we have an assignment due every week from this point on. (Remember that false self-confidence I was feeling? Now I know why.)

The last new item on her agenda was posting her office hour (HOUR) for Thursday, yesterday, only yesterday, and not everything Thursday, and her office HOUR happens to be smack dab in the middle of the day. And since students are from all over the country, you'd think she's tell us the time zone. But no.

See, I work during the day, so I didn't even know she had office hours until about 4:30pm when I tried to do more homework while being attacked by a wild monkey of a toddler. Most people taking this class work during the day. And typically, unless I'm just crazy here, most people who do take online classes do so because they are working full time jobs and need the flexibility of an online class so they can continue their education while still working, earning money, and paying all those bills we seem stuck with. So office hours in the middle of the day don't work for me.

Now, here's my problem. Not only did my teacher write, repeatedly, like on every online page we have to read, that we must post on the discussion boards, take part in student discussions and do the discussion board assignments, PLUS post questions on the discussion board about things we're confused about (I was really close to posting something about where our teacher is, because I was confused about that subject matter), but the online system is set up to notify students, and in my teacher's case, teachers, of new items posted on the discussion boards.

I'm starting to think my teacher didn't even write the module content or read it. And that she was just hired to teach someone else's content.

All I know is now we're all on speed dial, I don't know how I did on my diagnostic test, I haven't gotten my first assignment back (she gives herself a week, which I feel is fair), and my self-confidence has really fallen off to the wayside and is flopping around over there, off to the side, by the wall, and my cat Zoe is stalking it like the good cat she is.