Advantages of DL

[Albert Hidel]

...a strong belief in the advocacy of "diversity"...

Gotta love that diversity.  Took an online course once from…won’t say, but it was an RA Gold Standard gem you can be sure.  Said course required participation in a live online lecture session, with microphones and "raise your hand" buttons and all that crap.  

Now first of all, doesn’t that pretty much defeat the purpose of online learning?  Isn’t the idea to dispense with the stupid lectures and similarly annoying time-wasters?  Some of these higher ed types’ idea of progress is to make all the exciting new technological innovations just as stultifyingly boring as all the old crap they were designed to supersede.

So the prof comes online and it turns out she’s some reject from China who can barely speak intelligible English.  I’m sure she was a smart lady and a wonderful person, but I mean, come on, she couldn’t speak fucking English.  Just the person you want to listen to for an hour droning on about some required topic that you didn’t give two shits about in the first place.

Then the obligatory student-who-can’t-figure-out-how-to-work-the-online-software chimes in, also in broken English.  This time it’s a reject from some Spanish-speaking country.  So the entire first half of the class is devoted to an incomprehensible discussion between Ms. Dr. Chinese Pidgin-English and Sr. Spanish Pidgin-English about how to work his computer.  

Now its wok?
Jess, eet no aworky.
Yes it wokking?
Nooo, eet no aworky.
Its not wok?
Jess, eet no aworky.

Just because your English is good enough to answer the phone at the Chow Mein Palace doesn’t mean you can teach college.

Here’s an idea: They have a TOEFL test for every foreigner who wants to study in English.  How about an SFEGD test for anyone who wants to teach in English?  

That’s the “Speak Fucking English God Dammit” test.