Welcome to W210 Online

 

Welcome! I’m pleased to have you enrolled in this section of WOST W210, Introduction to Women’s Studies. Women’s Studies is a fascinating academic discipline and I’m sure this class will leave you eager to learn more. The challenge of designing this course to be delivered online comes from the desire to preserve the discussion-based class. As we will never meet together in a traditional classroom, the assignments have been devised to allow us to still interact and work through the topics together.

The online nature of this course also brings an interesting twist – its basis of technology. We will talk about your level of comfort with technology. Please write down this class blog address so you can access the class info even if/when Blackboard is down/unavailable. Please know I am always available to help you if you get stuck – you don’t need to know everything before we begin. I hope that those of you with more computer experience will be willing to lend a hand to those who may need some help. We’re here to learn together.

Blog?
Speaking of which, you might be wondering about this whole “blog” thing. I am using this blog to run the course (though we will still use Blackboard discussion boards to post almost all assignments). You will also be creating and posting own your own blog. This short (3 minute) video gives a quick overview of what a blog is:

Work together each week
Some online courses may be set up so that you may work through the material at your own pace and once you are finished, you are done — not this one. We will work together on each chapter: reading, posting, and discussing as a class.

While there are due dates for each assignment, you may work on your own schedule from there. That is, we do not have to be online at the same time. There is no set meeting schedule. You may post a reaction early, but may have to wait for others to also post so you may start your replies. I will generally assign only selected readings from each chapter, and the online supplements have been added for a reason. Read what is assigned. It will help you to understand the topics and be better able to discuss them together.

You have two simple assignments due this first week.

Did you catch that? Two assignments due this week. They are quick things, just to get us started. Be sure to check the syllabus and and the Assignments list. This blog is full of stuff to help you in the class – you just need to poke around.

Contact me

Feel free to contact me at any time if you have questions or any concerns. I can’t see your face for clues as to how you are picking up the material, you need to let me know what’s going on for you. I’m always happy to help! You can email me or call me anytime.  If you’d like, we can meet face-to-face – just contact me to set up a time.

I look forward to a great semester. Please hang in there as we work out the wrinkles in the first couple of weeks. Every online course is set up differently.  After two or three weeks, you’ll understand the rhythm of this class.

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