Are you the Keymaster?

In the 1984 movie, Ghostbusters, Rick Moranis’ character, the Gatekeeper, was looking for the Keymaster. Cataclysmic events would occur once the Gatekeeper and Keymaster met and preventing such a catastrophe was the goal of the Ghostbusters.  There are times when our online world feels a little like that.  Cataclysmic, catastrophic!
Over the course of my previous online [...]

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Online Course (With Apologies to Poe)

I took a bit of artistic license with this, but this is based on a true story shared by Jeff Goldman at the excellent MinuteBio blog.  Several weeks ago, I put out a call for e-learning horror stories. Jeff’s was by far the best (or worst!) story, and I’m grateful that he inspired me to [...]

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Copying, Pasting, and Getting Caught

It’s a common complaint (often exaggerated) about online education that students plagiarize, but my horror stories aren’t about students. My horror stories are about developing online courses. (Note: neither of these stories is from PLS; these happened at a prior job.)
How NOT to Hide Your Tracks When Plagiarizing
I was reviewing a course I inherited from [...]

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A Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night or so the transcripts say,
The nimble fingers of the students transformed the course all day,
Collaboration took place in wikis and chats the most,
But rising from the General Forum came an ALL CAPS post.
It was no admin nor help desk participants knew well,
No instructional designer in anger sent out [...]

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Things that go bump in the night…

For some the month of October conjures up images of Fall Festivals, autumn leaves, and candy corn. For others, memories of Edgar Allan Poe’s  The Raven or The Tell-Tale Heart come to mind.
The Raven
Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While [...]

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