In college, students and teachers have differing expectations of
technology. Teachers typically expect one of two things from
online technology: - Increased content consumption by the
student, and/or - Decreased grading workload for the teacher.
Students typically expect one of two things also: - Increased
access to their teachers, and/or - Increased access to updates
on their grades. There are outliers in both groups, of course. I
make a gross generalization in order to make a point-there has
been great attention to and investment in educational technology
in recent years, but teachers and students are not in agreement
on what purposes that technology should serve. But on my mind
right now is students’ access to updates on their grades. So I
do not post grades on D2L. My students are critical of this and
I have wondered why. I contend that their discontent goes deeper
than their expectation of being hyperconnected and
instantaneously updated. I contend that teachers have used
electronic gradebooks to make th